Can't Be Hurt
by T.S. Blue
Summary: Bo's back in Hazzard after an eighteen month absence. Nothing - and everything - has changed. Complete.
1. Favorite Idiot

_**Author's note:** Here I go again._

_This one's back to being a little rougher around the edges and focuses hard on the relationship between the boys. It's another what-if kind of a tale: what if Bo had gone off traveling with Diane Benson's carnival after all? Imagine the_ Carnival of Thrills_ episode proceding pretty much as it did in the series, right up to the point where the boys make the jump. Then send it spinning off into an alternate timeline from there._

_Also, the chapters are longer. The structure called for it (and it seems pretty natural to me to write ~5,000 word chapters on average)._

_Don't own, don't earn, don't mean any harm to those that do._

_Cheers!_

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Chapter 1 -- Favorite Idiot

It makes perfect sense when the afternoon takes on a chill that the morning didn't have, with a damp feel to it, and there might even be a flurry or two hiding in those gray clouds that have gathered to greet him. Bitter, breath-stealing cold that only wanders this far south about once a year, and it would pick the day when he's got a longer walk in front of him than he's taken in a good eighteen months.

Used to be Hazzard kids drifted away from their school desks to stare out the windows at the slightest threat of a dusting of the white stuff. Probably still do, but it's late enough now they should all be out of school for the day, trudging along red clay roads and shivering. Luke used to holler at him to hurry up on days like this, but somehow the icy winds made him move about as well as cold syrup. More often than not he wound up wearing Luke's oversized coat on top of his own and getting just about shoved toward home.

Reckons it would be easier now if he had Luke behind him, but his cousin doesn't even know he's in town. Not a soul except Hobie has seen him, and no one would believe a word that man said, not with the way his brain's been permanently pickled by muscadine wine. _I'll get out here_, Bo told the town drunk, and it was only partly self-preservation and the desire not to get wrapped around a tree that made him do it. The other part was time and space, and just maybe the chance to think a spell about how to take those steps up onto the porch of the old farmhouse, and how in hell he's going to walk in and face them. Arriving in a car is no way to slink home on his belly.

Shivering along the road isn't a whole lot better, but at least it feels honest. Nothing more than the faded, green duffel bag that's weighing down his left shoulder to his name. Oh there's still some earnings tucked away in there, but not enough, nothing near what he'd like to be able to show for the last year and a half.

Wonders whether it's best to go in head bowed and offering himself up for whatever anger and righteousness his family (well, Luke) would like to heap on him. Then again, he's got nothing to be sorry for. He left with blessings (Uncle Jesse's anyway) and kept to his end of the agreed-upon bargain. And while he was gone he didn't do anything that hurt them in any real way (and Luke would actually agree with him there, because that there is a man that can't be hurt), but there are things he regrets. Things he could have done differently.

He knows better than to worry about the past. As his third grade teacher used to remind him, _it's too late now, Beauregard. You should have thought about how sorry you'd be before you hit Ricky Thompson._ (Never mind that the punch had gotten thrown in the first place because the rotten kid had called him Beauregard.) Hours in the corner of a classroom meant nothing in comparison to facing Jesse at the end of the afternoon. Didn't matter when he got around to being sorry in the old man's eyes, he was getting whipped.

And Luke would drag him home, shaking his head all the way about fools that were afraid of a whipping that only lasted for a few minutes anyway, but for all his smarts, his big cousin never understood a damn thing, really. How it wasn't the burn of the whip, but the sting of the words that hurt. The misery of the confession, then waiting to hear how Jesse was mortified by what his youngest boy had done. Didn't Bo know there were better ways to deal with problems than to strike out at them that way? Hadn't he learned a single thing in all the years he'd been in his uncle's household? Didn't church teach him right from wrong? Then finally the old man would lower his eyes, and tell Bo to get out to the barn. _I'm so mad I can't look at you. I'm ashamed of you, boy._

Luke didn't know a lot about shame because he'd never felt it. The oldest of the Duke cousins was always right, even when he'd started a brawl that got the whole schoolyard rolling in the dirt. Sure, Jesse punished Luke, gave him everything he'd give Bo and more. Wheedled at him, threatened and shamed him with all his might, but Luke never gave in. Whatever discipline their uncle tried to instill bounced off Luke's exterior quick as a skipping stone, because his cousin always knew exactly what he was doing. Luke would as like as not stand up to his full height and give a complete confession. _Yes, sir, I did stay out all night with Janie Arnold after the hayride. No, sir, I ain't sorry about that at all._ And then, just to make sure there were a few extra licks coming his way, _in fact, I ain't got no regrets about that whatsoever._

The wind's getting downright personal about how it's blowing around the collar of the jacket that has no business being in Hazzard, and directly into his ear. Frozen lobe and an earache starting to develop. Maybe slinking home on his belly isn't the best way to go, maybe letting the town drunk drop him off in front of the house would have worked perfectly well. Maybe it's no different from when he was knee-high to a grasshopper and dragging his feet along this same stretch of dirt, dreading what would be there to meet him at home. Except, of course, back then Luke was on _his_ side of whatever happened, even if his superior mouth set itself into a smirk. _You're an idiot_, was Luke's take on any daily situation, _but you're my favorite idiot, and I won't let anyone hurt you._

He's not Luke's favorite idiot anymore. He is, he might have to agree, as his toes start to go numb from the way the cold's seeping through the cloth of the sneakers he's wearing, still an idiot. One without appropriate attire for the weather or the distance he's crossing. At least the fence that has lined the front of the farmyard for his whole life is coming into view now. Same beacon it's ever been on late afternoons when the light's fading and his stomach's growling. Good, old fashioned farm meal on the stove and a warm fire in the hearth. A wool blanket and a down quilt for the depth of night and back when he was little enough, sometimes he'd manage to slip under Luke's with him.

Memories are enough to propel him through the cold air and along the property line, even if his stomach's twisting up into knots. By the time he gets to the driveway it's probably the cold that keeps him moving forward instead of turning tail and heading back to the highway with his thumb out.

The front door looms and he's got to think about it. No one's ever used that door except strangers and fools peddling junk that no one in Hazzard can afford. Heck, even Rosco P. Coltrane wouldn't bother with the Dukes' front porch, though Jesse might want to banish him there. It's the formal entrance, pretty, perfectly painted, and rarely used. Friends, family and anyone familiar enough with the Dukes knows that the way into the house is up those back steps, through that screen door, across the splintering porch there, and into the kitchen. Seems like maybe Bo ought to go knocking like a formal visitor this time, surrounded by tidy whitewashed boards until someone moseys their way down the hall to open the door and see what manner of stranger the winter wind has blown in.

And while his brain is busy thinking that, his feet are carrying him across the yard and around the back, like an old habit he's never really tried to kick. Sees fluttering movement, blue plaid waving on the laundry line, then his name's getting screamed out.

Weight in his arms, hot kisses on his cheek. Daisy. So that was the dark shape that was moving there under Luke's shirts. Given a few more seconds, he would have moved his eyes down to focus there. He drops his duffel bag to the ground just in time to catch his sweet, beautiful-as-ever cousin in his arms.

"Bo!" Good thing his ear's already half numb, or Daisy's screaming voice might actually have hurt it. "Uncle Jesse, Bo's here!"

Aside from Daisy's laundry basket there on the ground, which she's going to need to rescue from the wind in a minute, nothing looks any different than it did the day he left. Same bare patch of dirt under the old oak where they used to drag their feet under the tire swing that once hung there, same assortment of rocks lining the concrete steps to the porch, treasures from childhood arrowhead hunting trips, same way that Dixie and the old white pickup are parked just far enough from the house to require a mad dash to roll up the windows in sudden rainstorms. There's a third car over there, olive green, boxy thing, and it would just figure that his family's already got a visitor. Maybe he'll get lucky and it'll be the tax collector. Might be the only person on the planet that Luke would be less happy to see.

And there's the door, swinging wide, Uncle Jesse bursting through and muttering something about what in tarnation is all the noise about. Daisy turns him loose so she can wheel around and explain that the tarnation is actually the prodigal Duke boy returned, but their uncle has figured that much out.

"My boy," and his uncle's waddling down the stairs to greet him. Bo reckons it's only fair to meet the man at least halfway, what with how his legs are so much longer. "My baby boy," almost makes him laugh, considering that Uncle Jesse has to reach up to hug him. Bo stoops to make it easier, gets beard hair tickling that same ear that's not quite as numb as it seems. Hears the door creak again, and then the man himself is coming out. Jesse turns toward the noise as Bo busies himself with noticing how many more wrinkles his uncle's eyes have collected. "Look, Luke!" the old man says, and the joy in it is forced. "Look who's here!" (_You remember Bo, don't you? He's the cousin you used to have, before he went off to make his fortune on the Carnival of Thrills. You remember that, don't you Luke? How you and Bo fought for a solid week about whether he should jump thirty-two parked cars? You reckoned he'd get himself killed, he reckoned you were jealous that Diane chose him for the jump instead of you. Turned out he might just have gotten killed after all if you hadn't saved his neck, like always. You made the jump with him, he finally apologized for being a jackass, and just when it looked like peace might break out between the two of you, he announced he was joining the carnival after all. You remember that, don't you Luke? How you threw up your hands, said, "I give up" and stormed off? How you barely managed to show your face for your cousin's last day here, how you told him to take the General if he was going because you didn't want that dang heap anymore, how you disappeared and didn't come back to see him off, remember, Luke?_)

Luke's leaning on the post now, casual stance. Shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and no sign that he feels the chill, even if his cheeks are pink. Impassive stare, like maybe he really doesn't remember who Bo is.

"Hi, Uncle Jesse," Bo gets around to saying. Odd how no one has noticed his silence. Used to be his uncle would slip a thermometer in his mouth if there wasn't something he was going on about, nonstop. "Daisy," he adds, then, deep breath, "Luke."

His cousin tips back up out of his lean, takes the two steps down in that same kind of confident, fluid motion he's always had. A man who knows his body and how it works, knows he can take any opponent that would bother to throw a fist at him. Jesse steps back, and Bo could be wrong, but it seems the old man might be holding his breath to see what'll happen here. Daisy's got a nervous hand twittering around her mouth like she's worried that maybe there's a trace of lunch still staining her lips. Everything's real quiet and still as Luke looks him over, blue of his eyes as intense as it's ever been.

Bo sticks out his right hand. Figures he's got another hand to spare if Luke wrenches this one right off his body, but it doesn't happen that way. Luke just puts his hand in Bo's, pumps it up and down a couple of times. Feels just like all those times they chanted out their perfunctory sorrys and glared at each other through the handshake. Still, there's a curiosity in the way Luke's eyes hold his.

He's wondering, too, what this peaceful reunion means. Maybe Luke's not holding as many grudges as Bo thinks. Their right hands are still clasped together, so Bo uses his left to grip Luke's bicep, then when he doesn't get shoved away, he slides it up over his cousin's shoulders. Luke's left arm comes around him, too, but their other hands are still clenched there between them. Dang hard to read this thing that's somewhere between a hug and handshake, nothing in it to warm Bo up from his frozen walk. He holds on longer than he figures Luke wants him to, longer than his cousin has ever really tolerated in the past. Still, there's no commitment either way from the man. Bo thumps his cousin's back, waits for the echoing thump. It's how their hugs always end, someone (usually Luke) gets tired of being that close together, and the thump is a warning – this moment of affection's about to end. One of them thumps, the other one thumps back and they release each other.

The second thump never comes, so Bo lets go. Luke does the same, disentangles their right hands from where they've been pinned between their bodies, and walks away. Up onto the porch and pulling open the door. Starts to walk through, but then he turns around and gestures. _After you._

Jesse comes back to life from where he's been holding himself stiff over there. Waits for Bo to retrieve his duffle, then grabs him by the elbow and propels him forward. "Well, come on, boy! We wasn't expecting you, but we got plenty to feed you, ain't we Daisy?"

"Of course we do, sweetie," agrees his girl cousin, coming out of her own stupor. "You bet!"

They're walking up the stairs now, a threesome. Warm spots on his arm and back where Jesse and Daisy are holding onto him. "What brings you to Hazzard, boy?"

Yeah, well. That's a story that might want to wait until the old man cracks open the celebratory moonshine.

* * *

Just look what the cat done dragged in. By this time he's pretty much figured this wasn't possible. Two harvests and one planting season later and he got to reckoning Diane would keep Bo wrapped around her little finger until he turned just as bitter as old Carl had been, still hanging on to the periphery of the world the little lady spun around herself. Dizzy and discarded and always fancying himself as more important to her than he'd ever be. If anything, Luke expected Jesse would wind up dragging him off to the see the carnival the next time it came within a fifty mile radius, and there Bo would be, limping around on whatever injury Diane's wild stunts had left him with, collecting tickets or selling popcorn.

But no, here's the man himself, sitting at Jesse's right hand, shucking corn and talking about the carnival circuit like it's a world tour, like Murphy, North Carolina actually doubles as Paris come nightfall. Telling tall tales about the NASCAR scouts that came to the show in Greenville (but clearly didn't want themselves a yellow-haired, thick-as-a-brick stunt driver or Bo wouldn't be sitting here in the dingy old kitchen of a Hazzard farmhouse, shivering with every breeze that makes its way around the cracks in the door) and the fans that egged him on to ever greater feats.

Funny how he's talking to Jesse (and Daisy, too, who's at the counter dicing up whatever vegetables she's going to use to thicken the stew for four instead of three, though she's not too diligent about her work, turning around to pat Bo's head every few minutes – her cute, foundling puppy) but any time Bo thinks he can get away with it, his eyes steal away to look at Luke. Who is leaning against the sink, staring right back. Watching how his cousin just sits there and announces he's home to stay in the same casual way he declared he was leaving. Like it shouldn't surprise them, like it won't affect any of their lives one way or the other. _Move over, Luke, you've got a roommate again._

"Luke," Jesse says, and it's that same a-hair-too-loud, slowly-delivered voice he's been using since they all stood out there on the hardpan of their own farmyard, pretending to celebrate. Seems like Jesse reckons Bo being home has depleted Luke's IQ by a few points (and there might be some merit in that) so he has to speak carefully, enunciating every syllable, or he'll never be understood. "Tell Bo about your plans for the planting this spring."

Oh, that's laughable. In fact, Luke almost bursts out with a cackle at the ridiculousness of that suggestion. Manages to keep it choked down, but it's still there clawing at the back of his throat, just about ripping it to pieces. Nothing he could talk around even if he tried.

Spring planting. Will entail hiring a couple of guys with a better ratio of brains to brawn than he was able to find last year. Though last year's farmhands, whose names didn't mean enough to Luke to stick in his brain, weren't the worst ones. No, the biggest disaster was that first harvest.

_Jesse was on his case from that first week._ It's about time you found someone to help us with that harvest, Luke. Best if you pick them out. _Which was a nice way of saying that if Luke hired them, he'd have no excuse for complaining about their work later._

_Bo was a fool. Jesse would call him a fool in love, but Bo was a fool long before he met Diane Benson, and falling in love didn't make him any more of one. Then again, his brain might have been just as blonde as his hair, but Bo would figure it out soon enough, how Diane's ex-boyfriend, saboteur that he was, wasn't the whole problem. In fact, his cousin had said it best himself, how the carnival came first with Diane. And then, for no reason Luke could figure, after they'd both risked their necks for her, when the General had just about killed himself making that jump so she wouldn't lose the carnival to Boss, Bo announced he was going off with her anyway._

_It was – well the two of them had fought it out already. Luke would have sworn that victory was his, and Bo had seen the error of his ways. But in the end both Duke boys lost, and Diane got herself one brainless stunt driver. So Luke just threw up his hands at it all, reckoned if Bo really wanted the girl, he might as well have her. When it came right down to it, that pretty face of Bo's always got him whatever he wanted, right from the first time he'd wagged his toothless gums at Aunt Lavinia. _

_They didn't bother to revisit the problem of Diane. What they did end up fighting over was the General. _

"_Take him," Luke said, quick and to the point. "Maybe he'll keep you from breaking your dang neck." Besides, the car preferred Bo – anyone who'd ever seen the way it performed for the boy could attest to that._

"_Nah," Bo said, and it was trying to be good natured, but failed. "You need him more than me. I've got Diane." Oh, that there was prideful, and Dukes should know better than to get too sure of themselves._

_Lightning shot through Luke's skull, same blinding white he always got when his thoughts violently shut down in deference to his fists. Muscles of his arms twitching in response to fingers clenching then releasing, little warm up exercises. _

"_I don't," he said, and it was amazing how any sound made it past where his teeth were gritted so tightly together that his jaw ached. "Need no dang car to be my girlfriend, Bo." Which didn't make a lot of sense, not even to him. "I don't want him. You might as well take him because if he's still here when you're gone, he's going down to the crusher." And he'd turned around, deliberate move, away from Bo, out of the reach of where his fists were just itching to punch that red-hot righteousness off his cousin's face. Walked away, two steps, then ten, then—_

"_Dang it Luke!" Like clockwork. "Get back here. Luke!" He counted the seconds, waited for those scuffling feet to run up behind him, that hand on his elbow, and when it came he was going to—_

"_Luke!" was coming from nowhere near close enough to mean Bo was following him. Maybe his cousin did have half a brain after all. Too bad he didn't use it when his solicitous girlfriend came around, telling tales of roaring crowds and easy money. "Luke!" one more time, as if Luke had any intentions of turning back to him now, saying sorry, shaking hands and then handing Bo over all nice and neat for the broken neck the carnival was going to earn him. _

_Nope, Luke kept walking, one end of the farm to the other. Hopped the fence where it was getting rotten anyway, out and across Blacksmith Lane and into the woods there. Old trails under his feet, so familiar that even the dark, when it came, couldn't make him get lost. Was a shame, a man really could do with a chance to genuinely disappear now and again._

_By morning, he was exhausted, sweaty in the late summer swelter that never let up. Back across the old Blacksmith Lane, over the fence, through shoulder high rows of corn. Most of the way back to the house when that diesel rumble crowded its way over the morning birdsong and into his ears. Must've gotten back too early, Bo wasn't gone yet. Considered dragging his feet, turning around and heading back into the corn that would only do a half-decent job of hiding him._

_He was a Duke, he wouldn't run. He just kept on putting one foot in front of the other, same pace as he'd been going all morning. If it was a little slow, that could be blamed on the fact that he hadn't rested all night. Nor eaten, and a man needed food for energy if he was going to chase after that RV that was pulling away from the front of the house, rolling off down Old Mill Road. He had no energy, so he didn't bother, just watched the arm reaching out the passenger side window, waving toward the front of the house. Glimpse of a blonde, fuzzy head, then Diane must have hit the gas, because the vehicle turned the corner and was gone._

_And there, under the oak tree, sat the General. Jesse tsked when he came around the house to see Luke staring at it._

"_You missed your cousin," was just rubbing it in._

_So the dang General sat there, unwanted, as they all walked around it to live their lives. Daisy might have patted the hood a couple times on her way to Dixie and off to the Boar's Nest, but if she did, Luke sure didn't pay it any mind. About four days in, the sky clouded over and Jesse told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to take care of his things. Same warning he'd gotten some twenty years ago when his 'things' had consisted of a baseball bat and mitt. _Can't leave them outside to get rained on boy, got to put them into their rightful place.

_Which was how the General came to take up residence next to Sweet Tilly in the second barn. Put away alongside the rest of their past, which included moonshining. _

_Then the nagging to find hands to help with the farm began. But Luke figured his cousin was like those tiny spider webs he had to walk through each morning on his way out to the barn. Sticky, clingy, and for every dawn that they got broken, they were back by evening chores, to be walked through again. Stuck to his skin, annoying little things that rubbed him in all the wrong ways, and that was Bo. Always there, tickling right up against his skin. No need to hire anyone to do anything, because Bo would be home by evening chores._

_And one night Luke was banging around in the barn, getting all the danged hand tools out of the way, and they really ought to have a better storage system. Heavy evening, heat lightning streaking the sky, air just about liquid enough to drown a man. Surrounding him, tight and close, sticking his shirt to his back and his hair to his forehead. Soaked though with his own sweat, and he figured out that this was what loneliness felt like. _

_Found himself up in the loft and if his face was wet, so was the rest of him, and there wasn't anyone who could say that that part of him was any wetter than any other part._

_The next day he'd gone into town, and made it known that the Dukes were looking for labor. Got the bottom of the barrel, because all the best men had already gotten themselves hired work on other local farms. Had to fire those guys after only a week and pick up the slack himself._

"Luke?" Yeah, there's a question he never got around to answering. Same loud, slow tone to Jesse's voice, and it's grating on his nerves.

"We's just about to hire us some farmhands to help with the planting," comes out from between his clenched teeth. Would've made him just as happy to keep his own counsel on the subject. But it's the price he's got to pay to get out of the too-crowded kitchen, hot and stuffy. Before anyone can say anything else to him, he's walking off to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

Well. That clears things right up. Bo's money is welcome here, as are the men it can hire. Bo, on the other hand, is not a real part of Luke's thoughts or plans. Hard to blame the man for that, actually. It's been a year and a half since he was last here, and it seems the farm has ticked right along without him.

It's really going to put a hitch in Luke's get-along when Bo admits that the cash tucked away in his bag is just about enough to buy seed corn, and nothing more.

"We still got goats?" Someone's got to break the silence Luke dumped on them. Family policy dictates that an angry Luke gets left alone to cool off while the rest of them huddle together and wait for his next exhibition of bad behavior.

Jesse's nodding there at his side, still peeling the hide off an ear of corn like Luke hasn't just turned his back on the whole bunch of them. "Bonnie May and Ginger," he acknowledges.

"Keep them in the same place?" Bo asks, shoving his chair back. His hands seem to be already free, must've happened when he dropped his ear, still mid-shuck, on the table after Luke walked out. Up on his feet and pulling his coat off the back of the chair where he left it when Jesse welcomed him in, then put him to work on making his own supper. Exactly like old times, right down to how his oldest cousin just watched the proceedings, feeling no compulsion to jump in and help.

"Now, Bo, you ain't got to go—" that's Daisy, but she has no real idea what he's got to do.

"Bucket still by the back stoop?" he interrupts. It's not polite, but he reckons getting out fast is more important than being nice.

"That jacket ain't warm enough," is Jesse's acknowledgement that Bo's going out there, no matter what Daisy has to say on the matter. They need the milk to serve with dinner anyway; why not let the willing family member go out into the chill after it? "Take Luke's," head nod to indicate where it's hanging on that same old hook by the door.

Now that right there poses an interesting conundrum. What's Luke's is his, or always has been anyway. But that was before Bo went out and got himself something Luke didn't have: a serious girlfriend, a paying job, and a life outside of Hazzard.

"Mine's fine, Uncle Jesse," and he's out on the porch before anyone can argue the point. What's a little cold after the way Luke's already frozen him out?

* * *

There's quiet muttering going on when he gets back to the kitchen; his uncle's voice isn't loud and deliberate anymore. Apparently Daisy's IQ is not affected by Bo's presence, only Luke's.

Could be he should blame Jesse for any Bo-related brain damage anyway. All those years in the same room with a boy who had no understanding of the words _quiet_ and _still_. Might just be that if Luke hadn't been exposed to him from early childhood, his own concentration skills might have been better, and he could have brought home those grades Jesse always wanted him to get. _You're smarter than that_, the old man would say every time Luke laid a perfectly reasonable C-average report card in front of him. Might have done better without a live-in distraction.

And now that Bo's back, Luke's concentration is about to get scattered to the wind again. Not that it matters; farming, like C-averages, doesn't exactly tax Luke's brain. Hard work, but the same danged routine over and over, complicated only by nuisance problem-solving like (who to hire by way of farmhands) combating summer pests.

He's made space for his cousin again. Not that he has encroached a lot on what was once Bo's; he pretty much stayed out of that side of the room. But his clothes drifted over the center line in the closet, and at some point he confiscated Bo's sock drawer, if only to give his own underclothes more room to breathe and less of a chance to get wrinkled. But everything's back to its rightful place now; there's plenty of room whenever Bo wants to get around to unpacking that duffle bag of his. And then there's the bed; musty old sheets probably hadn't been changed since the morning Bo hopped into Diane's RV and waved his happy fingers in goodbye to everything he'd ever known. Luke's fixed that now, fresh sheets for his cousin, and he's switched their bedspreads so Bo's will smell fresh. Luke can deal with some neglected, old blankets for one night.

Everything's ready for his cousin to move back in, even if Luke might advise him to turn right around and go back the way he came.

And there in the kitchen, where the prodigal cousin is nowhere to be seen, Daisy's quiet voice is saying, "I'm worried about him, Uncle Jesse." Yeah, little boy blue must've lost his girl somewhere in the last year and half. It's a tragedy, really, and requires a great deal of worry on Daisy's part. He lingers in the doorway, waiting for Jesse's sage response about how gentle loving will surely cure the boy of his heartbreak. But the old man doesn't get a chance. "Where are we going to put him? He can't stay in the same room with Luke."

Must've shifted his weight on that old board that creaks, because suddenly Daisy's turned away from her ministrations over the old pot to look at him, wide eyed. Jesse's probably staring, too, waiting for Luke to explode into angry little shards all over their nice, clean kitchen.

"I ain't gonna hurt him, Daisy," he informs her, calm and quiet, and it's not his fault her mouth is gaping for something to say as he turns on his heel and heads back to the temporary quiet of the bedroom he just cleaned up in honor of his cousin moving back in.


	2. Smart as a Box of Rocks

**Chapter 2 – Smart as a Box of Rocks**

"You know," Luke says to him, by way of good morning. As usual, his cousin's up first, but then again, he never gave up the routine of the farm for afternoon shows and late night parties. "If you're gonna stay," as if Bo hasn't already announced his intentions to do exactly that, "you're gonna need to go see Boss Hogg." So, along with being the crack of dawn, it's also Monday. It was always so easy to lose track of that kind of thing on the road. Time vanished to travel and set up, and mostly he just kept loose count of days until the next show, which usually, but not always, fell on Saturday. Nothing else much mattered on the carnival circuit. No planting, no harvest, no annoying cousins to keep him straight.

"I know it," he answers, stretching against the cramp his old bed seems to put into his legs. Funny how, although he hasn't grown even an inch in a good five years, the bed's gotten too small in the eighteen months since he last slept in it. Then again, everything's smaller than he remembers it, even Luke.

Three days, and Luke's interactions with him have been entirely functional. _Look out for the axe, Bo_ (which wouldn't be a problem if Luke hadn't apparently taken to storing it against the side of Maudine's stall instead of the wall where it belongs), _hand me those peas _(which isn't the way Aunt Lavinia taught them to ask for things at the dinner table), _you gotta go see Boss today._ Should have gone Friday, the morning after he arrived here, had every intention of letting his probation officer know that he was back within county boundaries, but Luke had reminded him that registering with Boss was at least a five year commitment to staying in Hazzard.

"Don't do it unless you mean it, Bo." Gave him second thoughts, but he should have gone and seen Boss right there and then, because he's never had any intentions other than to stay here at the farm. Now Luke's halfway convinced he'll be leaving again.

"Want to come with me?" He knows better than to add the part about how it will be like old times, because Luke's already made clear that the past is of no value to him. But he reckons that if he can just get his cousin out there on the open road with him, maybe jump a few creeks, Luke's mind'll change on that.

For now, though, all he gets is a snort. "The Boss ain't got no interest in seeing the both of us." Luke's dressed already, getting ready to walk out of the bedroom. If the past three days are any indication, it'll be about the last he sees of Luke until dinner.

"That's the best part," he says, smiling as he sits up. "Come on, Luke, it'll be fun."

But of course, Luke's head is shaking. "I ain't got time for fun." He digs around in his pocket for a second, then walks back over to the dresser. There's a jingle as he grabs something, then tosses it onto Bo's bed. "You can take my car."

And Luke's gone by the time Bo's mumbling his thanks. Out the door to chores that'll be done before Bo can get dressed and outside, skipping breakfast, or maybe carrying it out to the fields in a paper sack. Wherever Luke goes, and Bo reckons it's no place important, he stays there through the better part of the day, getting back in time for late afternoon chores. Those, Bo seems to have been deemed worthy of helping him with, but not without terse reminders of where the tools are, and the exact method by which they should be used.

He hauls himself up and over to the dresser for clean clothes. Just because his cousin is fool enough to miss out on Daisy's cooking doesn't mean Bo has to be. But a body's got to be dressed and relatively clean to get some, so he finds himself some fresh clothes and pulls them on. Jeans are still stiff against his legs, which got used to the lighter weight, cotton clothing he wore much of the time when driving from town to town in the RV, or helping to set up on whichever fairgrounds the week found them at. Rigidity aside, the jeans and shirt feel right, washed by hand and dried on the line, and they smell of innocence and moonshine, picnics and fireflies. Every bit of his childhood is tangled up in the scent of these fibers.

"Hey sugar," Daisy greets him when he finally makes his way into the kitchen, after a brief detour to wash up. "Sleep all right?"

And that's another thing that just feels right, his cousin poking into his life with about as much subtlety as rutting goat.

"Just fine, darlin'," he answers. Leaves out the part where it's genuinely easy to sleep to the rhythm of Luke's breathing on the other side of the room. Diane and him, they never did manage to find a peaceful pace of life together. Everything was a struggle through the day that either turned cold shoulder or battle through the night. He'd left with her for a life of excitement, and that was exactly what he'd gotten: nonstop fireworks. "How about you?" The question is a distraction. The minute she starts to answer he's going to grab himself one of those sausages she's frying.

"I slept fine, and just you keep your hands to yourself," she says, guarding her pan like it's a freshly hatched chick. That's another thing he's missed, being around people that know him inside and out.

"'Bout time you got up," like that, Jesse coming through the door, already lecturing. "You know, if you're going to stay," and why doesn't anyone believe he's staying? Where do they reckon he's going to go, off into the woods to make moonshine? "I expect you to stop letting Luke do all your chores for you."

"I ain't exactly letting him, Uncle Jesse." He gets a dark look for answering back but, "He don't want no help out there," is the truth.

His uncle's sitting down to unlace those old work boots he likes so much, suede and worn to the point that Bo wonders how long it'll be before they can see his toes poking out the front. "What Luke thinks he wants don't have no bearing on it, boy. I expect you out there with him."

It's on Bo's tongue to complain how he can't hardly be working with his cousin if Luke's going to go getting up earlier than him and racing through completing all the chores before he can get himself together to get out there. But he reckons that his uncle's lecture won't get any shorter upon hearing that it's all Luke's fault for not waking him up like he did for most of their lives.

"Yes, sir," he agrees, instead.

"Daisy, that smells mighty nice," is Jesse letting it go, because Bo's still a guest in this house and is going to be until he gets himself confined to the county and starts pulling his own weight alongside a cousin that's bound to make every step of the way into some kind of a challenge.

– – – –

Town hasn't changed, or if it has, it'll turn out to be in all those same subtle ways that home has. Looks just the same on the outside, but Bo reckons the people here may not be as friendly as he's used to. Starting with Boss.

"Bo Duke," said with those popping eyes and puffed cheeks like a fish gulping at the air after it's been landed onto the shore; well that's pretty close to normal. "I didn't reckon on ever seeing you no more."

"Yeah, well I'm real sorry about that, Boss. I just got to missing you so much I had to come home." Rosco's already done a pathetic job of pretending to be irritated by his presence, complete with an a-gij-gij and three ijits, not to mention how seeing the likes of Bo Duke walking into the county building would have killed ten ordinary men. He didn't realize he was quite that pretty. "So here I am, reporting to my probation officer."

"You ain't staying," Boss asks, looking at him like he expects that Bo's got one hand behind his back, fingers crossed. His hands go up to show there are no tricks. Feels awkwardly like surrender, which makes him drop them just as quickly. "Are you?"

Why does everyone doubt that? "Of course I am, Boss. How else can I keep an eye on you and Rosco?" Whips that old charm right out of his back pocket, smooth as well-worn leather. Smiles away any bitterness for the moment, but keeps alert to the way Boss pops the cigar out of his mouth. The commissioner is not a happy man, pointing two fingers and hot ash at him, all at once.

"You're telling me," the man says, "that you are ready to resume the terms of your probation? Because that's what'll happen if you come back to Hazzard."

"Too late, Boss," he announces. "I'm already here."

There's a yip behind him, and he turns back to the squad room to see Enos standing near the still swinging doors.

"Bo Duke, is that you?" Enos is the very best kind of deputy, quick and observant.

"Hey, Enos buddy!" he calls. It only takes a second for the man to cross the room and start pumping his hand.

"Why it's mighty nice to see you, Bo! I done missed you. I was just saying something about you to the sheriff not a week ago, about how Hazzard ain't been the same without you!" Well, it's good that someone's missed him. A shame it has to be Enos, not his family, but beggars can't be choosers. He hugs Enos, feeling the warmth in the man's arms. Silly little giggle in his ear, and all he can think is how he'd rather hear that growling voice of Luke's.

– – – –

"Why, if it ain't the ugly duckling!" Coming from Cooter, that's a compliment, as good as it gets. "What brings you to town, stranger?" Looks at his hands, fresh from the guts of an old, half-rusted station wagon that might have been blue at one time. Must decide they're too greasy to shake with, but that's all right. Bo slings his own arm around the mechanic's shoulders in greeting instead.

"I'm back to stay," he announces. Cooter, he reckons, is in no position to look all skeptical about that. He went off for a few years himself, disappeared to Texas while Bo was still mostly a kid. Came back around the time Luke went off to the Marines, feral and drunk and Jesse didn't approve of his underage nephew getting too close to him at the time. Things have changed, maybe more than Bo knows. The man's clean-shaven now, never looked so healthy and law-abiding in his whole life.

"Just you or did you, uh," hesitance, looking around them for eavesdroppers, "bring that girl with you?" That girl. Cooter never liked her either; no one had. He's not looking for anyone listening in, he's just making sure 'that girl' is not waiting there in Luke's car to pop out and ruin his whole morning.

"I done left Diane," comes out in a sigh, probably sounds like regret. It isn't, it's just acknowledging the fact that he's going to be hearing for the rest of his life what a fool he ever was to go off with her in the first place.

"Sorry to hear that," but he's not. "Lukas ain't with you." It's not a question, really, more of a statement of fact and totally lacking in surprise.

"Naw," Bo acknowledges. "He had stuff to do at the farm." So long as Cooter doesn't get interested in the daily workings of the Duke farm and ask for details about what, exactly, 'stuff' is, that answer will do.

Seems unlikely that his friend's going to pry, though. He's right back into his intimate relationship with the ailing station wagon, elbow deep in engine and grease. "Uh huh," he answers, like he knows that even if 'stuff' was about as important as picking the lint out from between his toes, Luke would've stayed behind to do it.

"He lent me his car, though," he adds, not sure why. Maybe just to prove that Luke's spoken to him today, to remind them both of a time when he and his cousin would have marched in here together, insulting Cooter before the man could get a shot in on either of them, bearing without thought to ever losing it, the bond of blood and a shared childhood.

"Whaddya think of that baby?"

Luke's car? "Seems like the kind of thing you ought to haul a wife and three kids around in," he admits. "Or maybe just cruise on down to Florida in it and retire." Box-shaped, a Dodge, but nothing close to the General. Ten years old, maybe, a Dart Swinger, probably made for old people to feel young in, but it has the opposite effect on Bo. Olive drab, military green.

Cooter laughs. "He picked it out, though. Right out of the junk yard, said it was exactly what he wanted. I done pointed him towards a Mustang I was pretty sure we could get running without too much work, but he weren't having none of it. Hand me that socket wrench wouldja?"

Yeah, sure, he might as well spend a few minutes here helping Cooter, like old times. Looks like a pretty simple carburetor installation to him. Maybe. He's out of practice for working on anything but top-of-the-line show cars.

"What ever happened to the General?" he asks, dropping the question into the middle of work, like he's commenting on the weekend's chill that has fortunately retreated back to the north.

His friend shrugs. "You're gonna have to ask Luke that, buddy-roe."

* * *

Bo always was about as smart as a box of rocks. A whole country he could roam and be free in, and he comes back to the one place that would contain him, as much as lock him up within its boundaries.

Diane, well, it would surprise no one to hear that Luke lost no love on her. Though, in retrospect, she was as useful to Bo as he was to her. Got him out of the endless cycle of Hazzard, and free from the bonds that held him here. Boss was happy enough to lose one Duke boy, so long as he kept close tabs on the other one. Probably reckoned that without Bo, Luke couldn't get in the way of so many plans. Led to more nights in jail than he'd ever spent before. (Then again, some of those nights might have been the result of barroom brawls, which he could enjoy with a reckless abandon without Bo's easily bloodied nose to look out for.)

Bo's back, and it ought to thrill Boss to death, having two parolees to threaten.

"You heading out for a hunt?" That's Uncle Jesse, barging right into this quiet space that Luke has carved out for himself on the steps outside the back of the kitchen.

He shrugs. "Ain't got no real plans to." Just because he's using the strap to sharpen all the hunting knives they own doesn't mean he's going to use them anytime in the near future.

Jesse grunts and his knees pop as he sits himself down on the stoop, sharing the same four foot length of step that Luke's on. It's a Duke trait to never leave a man at peace for very long. "Wouldn't blame you if you did. Could be the last chance you get before planting season."

Knife blade he's working on is chipped, a remnant of hasty butchering. Bo never has had any patience or love for that part of the hunt. Not that Luke relishes either, but he's smart enough to be careful as he goes about it. Too rushed when it comes to the cutting, and more than a knife can get hurt in the process.

"How's it looking out there?" Jesse's apparently unwilling to leave him to silent contemplation of a knife blade.

"We're in good shape." It's nothing his uncle doesn't already know; he's been walking the perimeter of their fields, too. That freeze that snuck down here at the tail end of last week knocked down even the hardiest of weeds, should make it all the easier to turn the topsoil under and aerate it for planting.

Jesse nods sagely as he picks up one of the knives that Luke hasn't gotten to yet. His habit is to work on the hardest ones first, and save the ones that take less effort for after his arms have gotten tired. "It's a good thing Bo'll be with us this time around. He can help out for the whole season."

A snort may not be entirely respectful, but he reckons it's just about appropriate. That right there was a sly commentary from the old man on Luke's hiring and firing practices. Jesse always thinks the hands should stay around longer than Luke keeps them, but it's not his fault that temporary workers don't understand the value of a full sunup to sundown workday. They seem to think they're getting paid to stand around the cooler of lemonade that Daisy leaves out there for them, jawing about the hell they raised the night before, and how Hazzard girls are sweet on the outside and juicy in the inside. If they had any manners or work ethic, Luke might just keep them on through the whole season, but as it stands he's forced to let them go the minute the workload gets manageable.

Besides, if Jesse wants to manage the help, he's perfectly welcome to take on the task. For whatever reason, ever since that first harvest without Bo, the old man's turned over a lot of the responsibility for managing the place to Luke.

"You won't have to work so hard," Jesse suggests, "now that Bo's here. You can do more of what a young man's meant to." He puts the knife back down and stares out at the misty hills in the distance. Old man does that a lot; Luke's never understood it. No matter how closely he watches those hills, they never move or change. "Fishing," Jesse says. "You was always partial to fishing."

Well yeah, but his favorite part of fishing is the peacefulness of sitting by a perfectly calm lake, with worries no bigger than whether he's picked the right patch of dirt to sit on and wait for the fish to get interested in the cricket on his line. Precisely what about Bo being home will allow for peace and minimal worries, Jesse hasn't elected to reveal.

"Picnics at Hazzard Pond," comes next, and Luke has to snicker at that one. It's just a euphemism for finding himself a girl to spend time with, and his Uncle Jesse is actually trying to set him up. He ought to thank the man for his concern on the matter, but Luke's not in any need of assistance when it comes to women. "You might even take to racing again."

Luke's lips flatten themselves back out of the half-smiling response to the idea of his old uncle as matchmaker. Racing: he's got no thoughts he's interested in sharing on that subject.

"Luke." His uncle's done passing the time of day with him now; that right there is the man's look-at-me-when-I'm-talking-to-you tone. Dark stare surrounded by white face hair. "I expect Bo to help you with the chores. Morning and evening."

He shrugs. "Ain't my fault he can't get his lazy self out of bed." Besides, Luke's got solo chores down to a science. Bo would only slow him down. He doesn't need his cousin's help; the man wants to sleep in. Seems like an arrangement made in heaven to him.

"That's as may be," Jesse answers, steady, quiet, serious as church. "But you ain't to go doing them morning chores without him. So either you get him up or you just cool your heels until he gets up on his own." Jesse turns away then, grunts to a stand. "Your cousin coming home is a good thing. Now you can make your mind up to the contrary if you want to, and there ain't a dang thing I can do about it. You can convince yourself of just how awful it's going to be, and make yourself just as miserable as you want. But you ain't," dramatic pause there to make sure he's paying attention, "going to make Bo miserable. Nor the rest of us, neither."

And then, finally, Jesse leaves him to the quiet of the farmyard, sharpening tools for a hunt that he's got no plans to undertake.

* * *

"Get up, Bo." The words are familiar, ringing of childhood, and, if he's completely honest, most of his adulthood too. The tone though, there's nothing real friendly in it.

He lets the familiarity win out, reckons the friendliness will come in time. Luke Duke has never been easy to be close to, at least not for most people. Bo's never had to work real hard at it, be he reckons it makes sense that Luke's going to make him try this time. He counts a few things in his favor as he rolls out of bed and goes looking for suitable clothes for morning chores. His name, for one. Dukes don't fight Dukes, and they don't turn their backs on other Dukes, either. He's also got his own history with Luke, sun-speckled with all its dark and light moments. An orphaned childhood, a lost moonshining heritage, and more fun than any two boys ought to be allowed to have. And, if all else fails, he's got his blonde charm. No one can resist it, not even his surly cousin.

He's sitting on his bed, shrugging his shirt up over his shoulders when Luke tosses a pair of balled up socks at him. Must've dug them out of the dresser when Bo was busy getting into his jeans. He picks them up from where they bounced soundlessly off his arm and onto the bed.

"These ain't mine," he says, getting ready to chuck them back at his cousin.

"Yours are full of holes," Luke answers. "Ain't fitting to be worn. Make sure you tell Daisy to get you some new ones when she's in town. You can't go wearing mine every day."

Well, that's interesting. It's not like he asked his cousin to look after his feet in the first place. Man doesn't have to get all crabby about something he chose to do all on his own.

"Come on," Luke says, before Bo's completely done with his left sock. No matter, he's up and hopping as he gets it over his ankle, then he follows his cousin down the hall to the front door. "Boots, Bo," comes the reminder, like he's not smart enough to know that they've got to put some kind of shoes on their feet before they step out into the chilled near-dawn. "I'll meet you out there."

He's not that far behind Luke, but by the time he makes his way to the barn, his cousin's already under the goats, milking with the kind of efficiency that shows no indication that the man's aware that it's a living creature's body that he's yanking on. Bonnie May doesn't seem to be taking it too personally, though. Bo goes looking for the egg basket; like everything else, it appears to be in a different place than it was in those days before he hopped into that RV headed for the Tennessee border.

"Just sit," Luke says, using his elbow to gesture toward a hay bale.

"I'll help you, if you'll just tell me where the dang egg basket is," Bo answers.

Luke sighs; talking to Bo has always been such a burden to him. Might be why the man stopped using words, went with tiny gestures instead, eyebrow movements, little shoulder shrugs, a twist to his mouth, all used to have meaning to Bo. Now either Luke's not giving the signals or Bo's not picking them up. Leaves his cousin to talking, which is clearly more than he wants to do.

"It's in here with me. But you ain't got to collect them, Bo. Just sit."

He steps over the low rail of the goat pen and picks up the basket that sits next to Luke's left foot. "If you don't want my help, why'd you get me out of bed?" Cranky, testy, he's not used to being up this early. Besides, even Diane was more civil to him than this, most mornings.

"Because Jesse wants you out here."

Well. This morning's just been enlightening for him. Funny how he feels, all over again, like the kid whose stubby little legs can't keep up with Luke's longer stride. All those times his cousin yelled after him to hurry up, because he didn't really want Bo along. It was just obligation, like doing homework and keeping their room clean – Luke had to take Bo with him wherever he went. Feels his own resentment prick up in answer to Luke's.

But he goes after the eggs anyway. Just because the crab over there wants him to sit in the corner and keep quiet doesn't mean he has to.

Chickens hate him; they always have. Luke used to say he didn't approach them with enough authority to keep them in line, but if his cousin knows how to menace chickens, he's never taught that skill to Bo. Winds up taking more than a few pecks to his hands before he even scores his first egg.

"Knock it off," he growls at the chicken that's eyeing him with evil intent, before she can even get her beak to the ready.

"I told you to sit," Luke says, every bit the same I-told-you-so brat he ever has been.

"Luke," he snaps – it's cold, he should be sleeping, the damn chickens are hell-bent on making a fool of him – "What happened to the General?" He's not thinking.

* * *

Oh, that's not fair, the way Bo's looking at him through that mess of blonde in his eyes. Like Luke has set the chickens against him, maybe. As if he would do anything that would cause his kid cousin harm. Years of looking out for the boy that imagines himself to be a man now, a lifetime of putting Bo first, only to watch him take off with a woman that knew nothing of what she was getting into, couldn't have cared less what it took to look after Bo. She wanted an idiot to pull stunts like a trained monkey, and as much as Luke tried to protect him from it, the boy walked right in with both feet. _Yes, Ma'am, I'm ready to take my life into my own hands so you can use me until I get hurt, then find yourself another trained monkey_.

A whole childhood he'd given up to taking care of the brat (so what if it had mostly been fun? It was still a sacrifice), a whole adolescence of getting between the boy and Jesse and winding up with his own hide tanned as thanks for his efforts, a whole week of being at odds with his cousin while never, ever giving up on saving his neck from the likes of Diane and Carl, and in the end, his cousin had gone off with the girl anyway.

And now he's looking all put out about how the chickens don't recognize his bony hands, and demanding to know what Luke did with the car, as if he would ever have let it come to any harm.

Familiar, comfortable, like going up against the same enemy week after week, is the anger that surges through his brain. It's a solid thing, he hugs it close to him, tight enough to feel its sharp edges and pointed corners. Boundaries, there never used to be any between him and Bo, and that right there was his biggest mistake.

"He's next to Tilly in the far barn," Luke answers, squeezing the last few drops of milk from Bonnie May's teat. "Hurry up with those dang eggs. I ain't allowed to go back into the house without you."


	3. No Business Being Laid to Rest

**Chapter 3 – No Business Being Laid to Rest**

Mornings and evenings he's sentenced to time with Luke – his cousin makes sure it's as brief a time as possible, and Bo helps him in that endeavor – and before the noontime meal he tries to settle into the house with Daisy. For a few days she's glad to have him around, pausing in her sewing or cooking every few minutes, just to hug him. Before the week is up, she's sweetly tolerant of his presence, mildly indulgent when he wants to help her with her chores. By the time he's been home for ten days, he's been sent outside to play in traffic. The order of the household has returned to normal – inside is Daisy's domain, which tolerates Jesse only because he's older and needs his rest from time to time. Duke boys are meant to play outside, on the fields and streets of Hazzard, coming home only long enough to shed their clothes so Daisy can clean them.

Jesse nudges him with, "Why don't you go help Luke?" Bo looks at him; maybe he succeeds in conveying skepticism. Probably not, for all the times in his life he's tried to look like anything other than _that sweet little Duke boy_ that all the neighbor women called him as a kid, he's been told he fails. "Well, he's out there doing something, you can count on that. Whatever it is, just—help him with it," is Jesse's astute advice.

He's losing track of days again, but he knows it's March. Still a good three weeks from actually planting, so what Luke might be working on out there is anyone's guess. But Jesse's got a point. Whatever Luke's doing with his days, it's liable to be strenuous work.

– – – –

"What are you working on today?" he asks into the morning chill – it's still winter, and his body's still not used to being out in such early morning air – as he's milking Bonnie May. Interestingly, after a few days of fighting against him doing any of the morning chores, Luke has deemed him worthy of milking and egg collecting, but not any of the heavier, cleaning chores. Seems kind of unmilitary to him; he remembers Luke's earliest letters home complaining of how the fresh recruits got stuck on latrine duty. For all that Luke resisted that type of labor then, he seems perfectly content with it now.

"I'll be out of the property line," is the vague answer. His cousin never has liked to be pinned down as to what, exactly, he is up to. Reckons everyone should sit back and wait until his plan-of-the-day's complete, then it'll all come clear to them. Except this is farm work they're talking about, not some elaborate scheme to keep Boss from cheating in an old-timer's moonshine running race. Bo rolls his eyes. (And probably still looks like _that sweet little Duke boy_, even if what he'd like to look is annoyed. Actually, Luke's got annoyed, frustrated, impatient and flabbergasted down to a science. Bo needs to take a few lessons from the master.)

"Doing what?" he asks, because he has no choice. If he wants to get Luke to convey any real information to him, he's going to have to beg.

And that right there on Luke's face, the way his eyes look off to the corner of the barn like his patience might be found there, the way his lips press into each other as if they'll never bother to open themselves up for the likes of Bo Duke, the way his knuckles are nearly white and the muscles on his bared forearms stand out with his tight grip on the shovel, that's annoyance personified.

"I'm shoring up the fence along the ridge by the creek," he admits, like he's been forced to reveal a pertinent, military-strategy secret.

"I reckon I could help you with that," Bo offers.

"It's a one-man job, Bo," is Luke's dismissal as he turns his full attention back to his chores. There's no arguing with a man that's more interested manure on the barn floor than talking to his cousin. Bo finishes his milking, and waits to join Luke so they can walk into the house together for the sake of Uncle Jesse.

And when Luke heads off to his own projects after breakfast, Bo reckons he doesn't need to wait around for the man to come home. He's been thinking they'd do this together, but Luke's not interested in spending anything but Jesse-mandated time with him.

Besides, his cousin's point of view is clear from the way he abandoned their pride and joy, the thing they built and rebuilt and tinkered with until it was just about the most perfect piece of machinery ever created, out here in the second barn. A storage shed, really, except the objects it stores are bigger than would fit into any of the other outbuildings.

And there he is, hiding under a dusty beige tarp when Bo opens the door to the light of day for what might be the first time since Luke dumped the General here. Next to Sweet Tilly, protected by her own, blue tarp, but at least she was retired here. Lovingly restored after that day he and Luke crashed her and nearly got themselves sent up to the State Pen for what might have been as much as ten years. It was an almost ceremonial thing, letting her live out the rest of her years in peaceful comfort. The General, he's got no business being laid to rest beside her.

Dust tickles against the hairs of his arms as he pulls the cover off to reveal the General's orange skin, just as glowing as it ever was. Takes a moment to run his hand along the smooth metal there, and the rise and fall of that cool contour is as familiar to him as his own body. Walks the length of the car, fingers trailing along its body, remembering dents he and his cousin lovingly banged out of this quarter panel, the hood that wouldn't latch after a game of bumper tag, and the time they had to replace the windshield. Pictures Luke's tongue hanging out in concentration when he changed out a broken taillight bulb, smiles in response to the ghost of the grin Luke got when he welded those doors shut. This, right here, is a beautiful car, full of all the best moments in Hazzard history.

The hood pops with a familiar clunk, and he gets himself an eyeful of the heart and soul of the General. Looks good, wires don't have any cracks and even the fluids look relatively clean. He's going to need an oil change, Bo figures, and maybe even new spark plugs just to make sure he doesn't misfire at high speed. Reckons he could do it right here, but there's no point. He'd be all alone in the dim mustiness of forgotten items, like that tractor engine back there, and the backhoe that wore itself right down to the point that its good for nothing but spare parts. Somewhere in here are tools of the moonshining trade, too, and this here is a graveyard. No point in consigning himself to the company of ghosts.

He slams the hood and walks around to the gas cap. Luke's nothing if not meticulous, even in his abandonment of past loves. Figures his cousin drained the tank to prevent corrosion, and it's a good thing Bo stopped by the other barn on his way out here. Sure, the gas he's pouring into the tank now was meant for the tractor, but the General could use a good, stiff drink. Besides, he'll be sure to refill the can before anyone needs to use the tractor.

Pops the trunk to store the can, and there's the blanket him and Luke put in there years ago. In case of an emergency, they'd told Jesse, but anyone with eyes could see him and Luke had used it mostly for convincing girls that it would be nice to lay out by the lake and look at the stars – see, your dress won't get dirty, we got this nice blanket here to protect you. Chivalrous boys.

Slams to the trunk as an audible attempt at shoving sticky-sweet memories out of his mind, heads over to the driver's side door and hoists a leg up into the window. Of all the cars he's been in the last year and a half, none has ever had windows the right height or width for him. It's almost like he's worn a groove into the steel right here where his shoulders follow the rest of his body into the driver's seat.

How thoughtful of Luke to leave the keys there for him, hanging in the ignition for eighteen months. Not that his own set have ever been out of his front pocket, except when he was sleeping, and not always then. Putting them on his dresser each night used to drive Diane to distraction; she'd hint pretty broadly that the trash would be a fine location for keys to a car he'd left behind. The RV was too small for all of his junk, she said, like he had much of anything, like keys took up any space at all. He took to keeping them on the nightstand, that much closer to them both, then jingling them before he put them into his pocket. Yeah, maybe it wasn't entirely her fault that they couldn't live together.

He cranks the ignition, no surprise when the car roars to life under him. Not a cough or sputter, and that's the General, raring to go after a forced vacation. Has a momentary qualm or two about how maybe he ought to let Luke know that he's leaving and where he's going, but the General's as much his as Luke's. And his cousin's as much as admitted out loud that he doesn't want the car anymore.

Cooter – now there's a man that will be glad to see the General. Glad enough to lend a little free labor to getting him back into full running condition, Bo hopes.

* * *

Jesse's wandering around the periphery of his vision again. Dried mud on old work boots just trekking back and forth while Luke's down here in the half-dead grass, installing the newly sharpened blades under the tractor. Man must be emptying everything out of the house and into the barn, or vice versa. Either that or it might just be that he's doing a really bad job of being clandestine as he spies on Luke.

One greasy hand pushes dark hair back off his forehead as he considers the stripped bolt that's thwarting his progress at the moment. He could try to rethread it, but there are risks to that, too. Reconditioned hardware has a bad habit of failing right when it's needed most. He should probably just replace it, even if it does mean a trip into town to see Cooter. Bangs the resistant thing out of its rightful place and moves his head out of the way when gravity pulls it to the ground.

Grass grinds into the pattern of his shirt when he digs his boot heels into the dirt to drag himself out from under here. Blinks into the light that greets him when his face gets out from under the tractor's dark underbelly.

Boots. Huffing.

"Uncle Jesse," he says, as his uncle's on his way past again. "Was you looking for me?" No point in letting whatever's simmering in the old man's belly bubble its way up to boiling – a fellow could get burned that way.

Jesse looks dumbfounded, like he's surprised to find Luke right there, as if he hasn't been walking in detours around his nephew's legs. "How's she looking?" he asks.

"Well," Luke says, sitting up and wiping his hands on his jeans. He'd pull out a rag, but there's no point. Daisy's already going to be starching his shorts for a week based on the grass stains alone. "Gonna need a new retention bolt." He fishes the old one out from under the tractor and displays it for his uncle.

Slow, sage nod in response to that; Jesse's giving it some serious consideration. It's quite obviously the most interesting fact the man's heard all day. "Can you rethread it?"

"Could. I ain't gonna, though. Too risky."

More deep thought about that. It's an important problem to be considered. Beard-scratchingly important. "Guess you're gonna have to go get a new one, then."

"That's what I figure," Luke answers. "Soon as I get cleaned up." Because there are rules about how tidy a Duke has to be in order to go to town, even if he is heading off to get filthy all over again in Cooter's garage.

"You know," Jesse observes. "Bo's got the General out there." Yeah, he does know. Everyone knows; the whole town's talking about how great it is to see General Lee tearing up Hazzard's roads again. Not that Luke's been talking to the town lately, but Daisy brought that particular news home from the Boar's Nest last night. Yammered all morning about it, while Bo looked guilty.

"Sorry, Luke," he'd muttered, but there was nothing to feel bad about. Other than the fact that Bo should have gone ahead and taken the car a year and a half ago, instead of leaving him behind like everything else. Luke had just shrugged about it all.

"I know he does," he answers his uncle.

More deep thoughts are running through Jesse's head as Luke uses the wheel of the tractor for leverage to stand. Brushes his hands against his jeans again, and considers just going inside to change.

"You have something more to say to me?" he asks instead, because, daydreams and fantasies aside, there's no way he's getting past his uncle without having some great pearls of wisdom dropped on him.

"Nothing of any real importance, no," the old man answers, and Luke starts to walk away. "Except," yeah, he knew that was coming. "You ain't got a lot more time to enjoy yourself before planting, Luke. You and Bo both need to have a little fun now, because I ain't going to tolerate no late nights once we get going." And that, right there, is about as subtle as things run in this family.

Luke shakes his head. "I ain't got no plans to go off gallivanting once we start planting, Jesse," and his uncle knows that, too. Luke's never been the irresponsible one.

"Good, good," the old man answers, real calm and still exceedingly thoughtful. "All the more reason you should go do some now. I'll expect you home around midnight."

Well. That's not the kind of order he's ever gotten from the old man before.

– – – –

"Heya, Lukas! What brings you down here?" Cooter seems bound and determined to announce to the whole town that Luke Duke has arrived at the garage. Or maybe he's just alerting Bo, whose backside is poking out of the General's exposed intestines. His cousin stands up quickly, taking a sharp rap on the head from the hood. Always moving before thinking, and that right there is the result: hand rubbing what hurts while his cousin glowers at the car for betraying him. Eventually, Luke would think, Bo would figure out exactly how tall he is and stop bumping into things. Hasn't happened yet.

Luke digs into his pocket for the offending bolt. "Need me a new one of these."

"Sure, no problem. I got plenty in stock. Cost you all of thirty-seven cents," the mechanic grins. Funny how old he's gotten to looking, ever since he shaved that beard. Man doesn't wear adulthood well.

Luke clears his throat. "I was thinking maybe you'd take a beer, instead." Cooter turns back from where he was about to walk off in search of a new bolt for Luke. His eyes glow at the thought; maybe he's not as mature as the airs he's putting on would like the town to believe. "Maybe you and Bo could join me at the Boar's Nest."

Bo all but wags his tail at the notion.

– – – –

"You just gonna sit there all night?" Bo asks.

Luke shrugs at him. He's got nothing much better to do than take up space here in the corner, sipping at his beer. Someone's got to be responsible. He convinced Bo to leave the General at the garage by promising that he'd stay sober enough to drive home.

"Well I'm gonna dance," he gets informed, and waves his hand at the notion. Of course Bo's going to dance; he's got to find himself a girl. Someone new to tell him how wonderful he is, and maybe this one will convince him to run off to California and become one of those movie stunt drivers. That tall one sitting at the bar and just about talking Daisy's ear off looks like the type to know someone who knows someone that can get a pretty boy like Bo an agent that will make him a star.

Cooter wanders off on him, too, leaving Luke to slouch in the corner and watch the proceedings over the lip of his mug. Aside from the friend-to-the-stars, Luke reckons there are about three other girls here tonight that Bo's going to want to get to know better. Bottle blondes, in clothes that would be better suited to July. Cooter's chatting up the one in the shortest skirt when Daisy manages to get free from the bar to head toward him with the pitcher that Bo probably ordered for the table. Doesn't quite make it before some fool says something – he can't hear what – that makes her pause long enough to put him in his place. She moves on as if nothing happened, but Luke marks the guy. Doesn't say a word to Daisy, not even to ask her what he said, just keeps his eyes focused on the offender.

He's nobody Luke's ever seen before, probably just some one-night, long haul trucker passing though. Not worth worrying about, so long as he stays seated there with his equally inconsequential friends. Luke reckons he's got nothing better to do than make sure that whole table keeps to itself for the rest of the night. He catches each of the three men's eyes at different times, but doesn't flinch or look away. It's a free country (even if he's confined to this small square of it, thanks to the probation that Bo was so all-fired eager to walk right back into) and he can watch whomever he pleases. Watches them mouth off at no one in particular, and that's fine.

But the idiots are not content to keep it to their own table, it seems. The one that made Daisy's eyes slide down to slits before she told him what was what gets up and makes his way to Luke's neighborhood. Not a big guy, but he's found quite a bit of courage at the bottom of a few watered down beers. Swaggering tough, like he's got half the brawn he thinks he does to back it up.

"You got something to say, plowboy?" Luke reckons he's been asked a question. Only thing to do is answer politely.

"Nope," he announces.

"You sure seem to have eyes for me and my friends." The words are clear, no slur whatsoever. Whatever else is wrong with the guy, Luke has to admit he can hold his liquor. "You one of them kind?"

Luke's got no intentions of answering that on the grounds that there's no way to talk horse sense to a jackass. Reckons if the guy wants to make a fool of himself, that's all right with him.

"Now you wait just a dang minute!" and damn if that's not Bo insinuating himself into things he's got no business messing with.

"Bo," he warns. _Let it go_. Of course, his cousin's temporarily deaf to him right now.

"That's my cousin you're talking to like that!" Finger pointing, spit flying from his mouth as he asserts it.

"Your cousin?" the stranger asks. "Or your—"

The last word gets lost in a right cross from Bo. Damn it, for all that his cousin's gone off and played at being a domesticated adult with a long-term girlfriend, he hasn't grown up a bit.

Now Luke's going to have to fight these dudes.

* * *

He hasn't lost his touch. Oh, he takes a few hits, maybe more than is strictly good for him, but he doles out better than he gets. His instincts are strong, too. He had this table marked for trouble from the time he saw Daisy bristle at the weasely one. Yeah, he went on dancing with Miss Candy over there, but he watched and waited. Caught Luke doing the same.

He remembers thinking, long about three years ago, that Boss ought to erect a sign out front: _beware of good old boys_ or perhaps _this establishment guarded by Dukes_. Maybe then strangers like this guy here, his second combatant of the night (seems like somehow Cooter took the first one off his hands) wouldn't bother to mess with the help.

Then again, if the Boar's Nest came with a warning, there wouldn't be nights like this, the kind him and Luke have always lived for. A few drinks, some girls to light a flame in their bellies, then a good fight to turn it into a bonfire. If they're particularly lucky, they get to go back to the girls after and take themselves out for a little late night cuddling at the pond. If it's a really bad night, they end up behind bars. Most of the time it's somewhere in between, where they spend the next hour whooping it up and going back over the fight blow by blow before they take their beaten bodies home to rejuvenate overnight.

Luke's got the biggest one of the bunch right now. He could take the guy if he wanted to; Bo watches him toy with him instead. Pulling punches so they only hurt, they don't level him. Luke takes a few himself, including a devastating one to the gut, but he keeps on fighting. That tight little smile there, the one he's probably not even aware of pulling at his own face, means his cousin can handle this guy.

"Hey y'all, y'all!" Squeaky, high voice, must be Enos. "Cut it out now, just knock it off." Bo ignores it in favor of hitting the man in front of him. He's a good half a foot shorter than Bo, but there's some power behind those swings of his. Surefooted, even with all the knocked-over chairs they are dancing around. Still, Bo's got him licked, would have flattened him already, except he's out of practice.

He's thinking that when he gets jumped on from behind, grunt in his ear as he elbows the interloper in the gut. Doesn't stop the man, he's after pinning Bo's arms. Doesn't succeed, but while they're struggling there comes a vicious roundhouse punch to his jaw. The body behind him won't let him fall, so his whole face absorbs the impact.

"Y'all, y'all!" Enos is getting more frantic, and Bo reckons he should stop screaming and pull his gun already.

Has only a moment to wish Hazzard had more aggressive law enforcement before a second hit's coming at him, low and nasty looking.

"Luke!" he calls out with the last of his breath before he doubles over.

* * *

It's a brutal, ugly thing, when his brain abdicates in favor of his fists. It's a thing beyond rationality that grips him, steals his clear vision, fills his ears with the sound of his own heart, pumping through the cotton of his shredded sensibility. He moves slowly, or time ticks to a different rhythm, hard to tell which. It's a deliberate thing, hitting the man in front of him hard enough to make him stumble, then passing him off to Enos with a carefully enunciated, "Cuff him."

Then he's over by Bo, skipping past the opportunist that's been taking easy shots at him, and straight onto the brute that's holding him. Big enough guy that he ought to be engaging in a fair fight instead of hiding behind Bo while his friend beats on him; big enough guy that Luke feels no guilt and only a twinge of fear when he doesn't check his swing at the man's face. Fortunately for the fool, maybe for all of them, someone clutches at Luke's arm just before it makes contact. Oh, it's still a good, solid shot, and the guy goes down, taking a bent over Bo with him. Luke wheels on the man that tried to hold him back, ready to break his nose for him, but it's just Cooter.

"Easy, buddy-roe, easy," he's saying. "Enos's got 'em." And look there, the deputy's finally gotten around to pulling his gun; fight's over. Those that are still standing have their hands in the air, all but him. Even Cooter's got his palms up in some kind of show of how he's not going to start anything – whether the look is directed toward Luke or Enos is anyone's guess. Doesn't matter, what's a problem is that Bo's hands are not up, in fact no part of Bo is anywhere but curled into a ball on the floor.

Luke's down on his knees, and if the process of getting there means he none too gently shoves into the guy he just leveled, who's still down there next to Bo, well that's accidental. And sometimes accidents hurt, like a knee in the ribs. The guy has enough sense to grunt and roll away.

"Bo," he says, no idea where the damage might be, but he's not going to know until his cousin comes out of that knot he's got himself balled up in. There's a gasp, shuddering attempt at getting air into his lungs, and Bo's hands are gripping at his gut. "Relax," he says. "Stop fighting," for air, for Daisy's honor, for fun – whatever, Bo just needs to stop fighting. "And settle down. The air'll come."

"Bo!" is a shrill tone over the sounds of Enos telling everyone to back off, it's all over now. There are low grumbles rising from both sides of the fight, or maybe they're complaining because Daisy's elbowing her way through the crowd to get closer to her cousins.

One of his hands grips the curvature of Bo's shoulder, pulls against the resistance there until his cousin's on his back, gasping toward the ceiling. Luke gets down close to his bright red face, filling what would be his vision, if he'd open his eyes. "Listen to me, cousin." Bo nods; as much of his attention as he can spare from the attempt to breathe is on Luke. Boy never did handle getting the wind knocked out of him very well. "Slow breath, Bo." Always did sort of pant like an overheated dog instead of settling down enough to re-inflate his lungs. His cousin nods again, tries to follow instructions. A gasping breath, still it's better than what he's been doing. "Again," Luke commands. Next breath comes easier, then a few more. By the time Daisy's there at his side, Bo's got control of his breathing, squints open his eyes.

Daisy's patting Bo's face as its color returns to normal. He winces away from her, yeah, there are some spots where the red hasn't faded – those'll be a fetching shade of blue come morning. Still, the boy seems to have all of his teeth and as many brains as he came in with so—

"You hurt anywhere other than your face?" Luke asks. He shakes his head, but Luke runs his fingers over Bo's ribs anyway. Tender, if those slapping hands are any indication, but nothing that a little rest won't heal. "He's fine Daisy, leave him be," is really just him taking mercy on his cousins, both of them. Because Daisy will worry incessantly and Bo will tolerate her poking at him until someone announces that the crisis is over.

Luke gets to his feet and helps Daisy to hers before offering his hand to Bo.

"Come on," he says, and he doesn't care if Jesse expects them to stay out for another few hours or not. "It's time to go home."


	4. It's My Home

**Chapter 4 – It's My Home**

"Get up, Bo," sounds just as annoyed as it has on any given morning over the past week. "I don't want to hear no whining, neither, about how sore you are."

Sore, yeah. That's the feeling in his face, his knuckles. That pull in his stomach with every little move in the night, that's more of a deep ache, the likes of which will keep him from too much bending. He can only hope that this isn't the morning Luke changes his mind about how many chores Bo ought to be doing.

He can't hold back the grunt as those muscles strain in his gut when he pulls himself up to sitting; then again he doesn't really want to. The pain is not good, exactly, but it's familiar, a souvenir of another wild Hazzard night, the kind he grew up on. Luke's jaw has got a souvenir of its own, and then there's the dark coloring under his eyes – must've taken a decent hit to the nose, too.

"Yeah, I'm sore," he admits cheerfully enough. "But it was worth it, huh, Luke?"

In answer to that he gets pointed toward the jeans he draped across the foot of his bed last night. Yesterday's clothes got taken out to the porch by Luke – covered in filth from the floor of the Boar's Nest, they were wet and sticky with liquor, and Jesse didn't want them stinking up the house. The old man had shaken his head at them as Bo described the events of the evening to him, then ordered them off to get cleaned up under penalty of a tanned hide. For the first time since that cold day two weeks ago when he walked into the Duke farmyard, Bo felt like he'd come home.

"That big guy, you had him exactly where you wanted him," he says. Another grunt as he reaches out with his right arm for the jeans. A couple pulled muscles in his shoulder, too, reminding him how his body's out of practice for festivities like last night's. Luke's watching the way he moves, impatient for him to be done. "I just don't know what happened to Cooter there in the middle. He had second dibs on the guy, should have been able to take him alone, but—" Bo shrugs, then regrets it. "Still," he's grinning again as he gets to his feet and pulls a shirt out of the closet. He'll stick with one that buttons today; pulling a t-shirt over his head will hurt more than he wants to tolerate. "It was a shame Enos broke it up so quick."

He expects Luke to shake his head and give him that look that calls him and idiot. Instead he gets that low, dangerous voice that his cousin's always saved for people that threaten his family – the one he used on Bo that day they came to blows over Diane.

"It's a dang good thing Enos broke it up." Luke points to Bo's abdomen. Yeah, there's a bruise there, kind of ugly the way it's gone purple around the edges. No wonder his sleep got interrupted with every little movement he made. "You ain't gotten no smarter since you been away, Bo. Maybe it don't matter none if you got broken ribs if you're just gonna spend your days trying to get yourself killed by pulling fool stunts for carnival crowds." Luke shakes his head again, a little more violence to the move, not so much pointing Bo's stupidity out to him as shaking his own thoughts out. He goes over to the dresser and gets Bo's socks for him; they're no further along than they were that first day Luke made him get up for chores. "You can't work the fields with broken ribs, Bo. It's a dang good thing Enos put a stop to what you started." Luke shoves the socks into his hand and walks over to the door. "Be out there in two minutes." And Luke's gone.

Chores are a miserable thing, and only partially because his movements are hampered by last night's bruises. Luke doesn't acknowledge him again, other than to wait for him to finish collecting the eggs before heading back into the house for breakfast.

"Well," Daisy greets them. "You boys look awful." There's butter starting to sizzle in the pans on her stove; cooking breakfast has yet to begin in earnest.

Luke ignores her, heads to the sink to clean up.

"Why thank you, sweetheart," Bo answers, because that burr that's under Luke's saddle has nothing to do with Daisy. Smiles for her like he knows she wants, gets his arm patted as a reward. It's a tiny thing, just four fingers on his bicep, but it's—

His mother is forever lost to him. He has no memories of her, though he's been told she was sweet as the day was long, and loved him to bits. His earliest images are of Aunt Lavinia, and the way she used to keep him close, one hand on his shoulder at all times. _He's a handful_, she'd tell overly curious neighbor ladies who wondered at the way she held onto him all the time. _He'll be off and into Lord-knows-what if I don't keep a hand on him._

It's a natural thing to him, touching as a means of knowing the other person is right there. He always reckoned it was natural to everyone, except maybe Luke, who tolerates, but doesn't often initiate, physical contact. But Diane, well, after those first few weeks on the road, she kept shrugging him off her shoulders, stepping out from the arm he liked to keep around her waist. _I've got things to do, Bo_, she'd say. _I can't have you hanging on me all the time._

At first he decided what he felt about that was jealousy. Wondered if she was already out picking herself a new stunt driver and bedfellow (and that would make Luke right about it all). But eventually he settled for resigned. Diane didn't have a new man on her horizon, she just didn't actually like Bo all that much. Not as much as she'd seemed to when she was putting all of her effort into wrenching him away from Luke and Hazzard.

Touch, he's missed being this close to people for the best part of eighteen months. Daisy's hand on his arm turns into his arms around her, holding her close, without him even really thinking about it.

"You all right?" Daisy asks and he nods his head, but his eyes are shut tight against the tears that threaten to leak out from under the lids. He's not sure whether it's his past or his present that's churning in his gut, but it doesn't much matter. He's got to pull himself together before Jesse shows up for breakfast. Like she knows the struggle in his heart, Daisy holds on that extra second, tight squeeze and a kiss. "I love you," she mutters, and it almost brings him to tears again.

His girl cousin releases him with a playful swat on his backside, and he appreciates that she manages to find the only part of him that doesn't hurt. "Get cleaned up," she says, and he heads off for the bathroom. By the time he gets back, Luke's got the table set, and Daisy's back at the stove, splitting her attention amongst three different frying pans. Jesse shows up right behind him and heads for the coffee pot on the stove.

"You boys have fun last night?" he asks, and it's impossible to tell whether it's a genuine question or a bear trap just waiting for a foolish boy to stick his foot in. Habit makes him look to Luke, but there's nothing there but that same flat glare he's been treated to all morning.

"It was all right," he answers, because someone's got to. Used to be, and not that long ago either, that Luke stood next to him whenever they were questioned by the old man. Telegraphed thoughts with just his eyes: _keep quiet, Bo, I'll take this one_ or _he's just bluffing_. Now it feels like Jesse's probably the more sympathetic one in the situation.

Their uncle turns and spends a few seconds looking at each of them. Nods his head as if they've said something damning anyway, tells them to sit. Waves at Daisy to go ahead and serve, which she does as quietly as a tiptoeing mouse, like she's waiting for someone's temper to explode any second now. But grace is calm and the meal is routine enough. Small talk about the tractor Luke's still got to finish working on, and how Maudine needs reshoeing.

"Daisy," Luke says, matter-of-factly. "I'm gonna take you into town so's you can pick up the General at Cooter's and take him to work today. We had one too many cars in town yesterday."

"I can go with you and bring him home," Bo offers, "that way Daisy can take Dixie, like always."

But Luke waves his hand in dismissal of the idea. "You need to stay home and rest up. You wasn't looking too good out there doing chores."

Yeah, Luke used to stand next to him and take half of whatever punishment Jesse meant to dole out. That was then and this is now, when Luke thinks nothing of saying exactly the kind of thing that will make Jesse assess Bo from head to toe.

"Luke's right, Bo," he says. "You stay here with me; I got some work I need you to do around the house anyway."

Great. His cousins are clearing their dishes so they can head out to town, while Bo's about to become the family maid. And Luke doesn't even have the grace to look smug about it.

– – – –

"Bo," Jesse says from where he's fussing at Maudine's feet. About the only thing worse than cleaning the house would have been, he's out here watching Jesse take a pick to the mule's hooves. "What did happen last night? Hand me that rag."

Nasty old thing, Bo picks it up carefully between his thumb and forefinger and dangles it in front of Jesse. Gets a steely look for his squeamishness, but it just makes good sense not to get too close to that thing. Jesse wipes his hands on it, then the pick.

"Nothing I ain't already told you after we got in." That, and a shrug, just about covers last night.

Jesse gives him one of those wise old man nods before turning his attention back to Maudine. "You didn't seem quite so – peaked, then. You get hurt worse than I know?"

"No, sir," he answers. Jesse's eyes come up from their careful observation of the hoof-muck he's been fussing with. Studying him, watching for where the chinks are in his armor. He could stand here and pretend there are none, but it wouldn't help. Jesse'll just keep poking and staring, poking and staring, until he breaks. Might as well say what's on his mind. "I ain't no more sore today than I was last night. And it ain't nothing serious, neither, just a few bruises." _Even if Luke did throw me to the wolves with the suggestion I couldn't keep up with him this morning._ "It's—I ain't got no problems, Uncle Jesse. It's Luke that's got the problem."

More sage nodding, and if he'd hoped the old man would take his side of things, it's clear he's got another think coming. "Why did you leave Diane?" comes next, and that's not fair, changing topics like that. "Take this," and that rag's coming back at him. "And pass me them nippers."

He's as ginger taking the thing back as he was handing it over, hanging it on the hook it came off of in the first place. "We wasn't together, not really, for a long time. I guess I just finally figured out that I didn't have no future with her." Hoof nippers, on the nail next to the rag, get pulled off and handed over.

Jesse's after that shoe he's just been picking around. This right here is the dangerous part, where a man could get kicked. He takes a step back like his uncle taught him to do in the days when his face would have been just about perfect kicking height.

"How come you stayed so long then?"

That right there is a loaded question. Then again, they both already know the answer. "Because I didn't want to admit I made the wrong choice." His head hangs as he remembers Jesse's favorite phrase from a few years back, the one about how pride makes for a good servant, but a terrible master. Steels himself to hear it again now.

"Well, boy, ain't none of us find our way through life without getting lost on the wrong path, now and again. The trick is to find your way back to the right one before you get so deep in the woods you can't never get back out." The first nail gets clipped off the shoe and Jesse turns his attentions to the next one.

"Yes, sir." Agreeing usually makes these things go smoother. Luke argues with the old man, debates until he either has to beat a hasty retreat or take a whipping. Sometimes it is better that his idiot of a cousin's not at his side when wisdom starts rolling off Jesse's tongue.

"Now you know I wasn't happy about you going off with that girl and not being married." He takes a small break from his labor of love to look Bo in the eyes.

"I know that, but that wasn't my choice, it was hers." What was that he was just thinking, about how agreeing was the best way to go?

Nippers get stuck into the giant pocket on the bib of his overalls, then Jesse's hand's out for the rag again. Probably his idea of punishment to make Bo touch it some more. "I know it was, and I still wasn't happy about it. Sometimes a man's got to put his foot down, Bo, and insist on what's right. When it came to that girl you never did."

No, he really hadn't. Oh, he'd asked for things like marriage or at least commitment, more interesting stunts to get involved in, a chance to work with the other drivers. He'd argued when she said no, got spitting mad, but in the end she'd won out. Only time he took a stand was when he left.

"But I ain't sorry for how it worked out. None of them wrong choices you made was permanent. Ain't nothing so broke it can't be fixed," Jesse concludes, taking the rag from him, wiping the newly stirred up muck from his hands with it, then handing it back. Bo would like to burn it, but he hangs it up instead.

Bo takes a deep breath, lets it out. "What about Luke?"

"What about him?" Jesse asks, like he has no clue. Like he can't see how much Luke hates him. Bo doesn't bother to answer, so Jesse goes on. "When you left Diane, how come you came here? You could have gone anywhere you wanted, why here?"

Well, that's easy. "Because it's my home."

"That's right," his uncle agrees. "And don't you never forget that."

* * *

He's got no real intentions of spending any time with Cooter, but then again, he's got no real interest in going home. So after he manages to convince Daisy that no, he really doesn't want to take the General home, and she doesn't need to take his car to work instead, then waves as she drives off, he finds himself sitting down to a morning beer. Hair of the dog, Cooter claims. Luke wouldn't know; he stayed sober last night.

"That was some brawl you boys started last night," Cooter says between loving sips from the can he's holding in both hands like it might slip away from him if he's not careful about keeping a tight grip on it. "Like old times."

Luke takes a swig of his beer. Store brand, too much hops. There ought to be a breakfast beer, closer to coffee-flavor. "Wasn't no _we_ to that one. Bo gets full credit."

"Well, then," Cooter smiles that gap-toothed grin that makes him look like a little boy just getting his adult teeth. "Remind me to thank him later."

"Mm," is all Luke has to say on that subject. "Ain't you got any cars to be working on or nothing?" If he's going to be here, at least he could be doing something useful.

"Thought you was going to put them blades back on that tractor," Cooter says to him. "What're you doing sitting here, anyways? Not that you ain't welcome." Which is just country talk for _don't mind me nosing into your business_.

"It's quiet here," is his unthinking response.

Cooter laughs at the notion. He's got no idea how the clank and rattle of mechanics can be quiet. He's never lived on the Duke farm.

"You," he says pointedly, "don't come after me giving me lectures or trying to make me talk. It's peaceful."

Cooter's eyebrows seem to find that a fascinating statement. "Well," he suggests. "I ain't got nothing but a couple of oil changes scheduled, and they ain't here yet. You can bang away on that Sunbird out back if'n you want." He has to pause there to take a gulp from his can. After all, it's been all of half a minute since his last swallow. The man's settled down and shaved his face back to boyish clean, but his beer is just as sacred as it ever was. "I dug her out of the junkyard; she's still got a lot of good life in her. Hell, if you fix her up, you can have her and dump that ugly thing you got now."

Cooter's never spared any love for Luke's car but that's fine, just fine. It's not meant to be loved, its sole purpose is to make sure that a body can get away from the farm when it needs to, without having to borrow the pickup.

"She run?" Luke asks, because he's not real interested in having to push the car around the corner and into the garage, not seeing as how Cooter doesn't look like he's up to being particularly helpful.

The mechanic's answer is to dig around his desk until he finds a set of keys to toss to Luke. "Give her a try," he offers.

He's got the dinged up blue hatchback sitting square in the middle of the garage within the span of a few minutes, and he takes to cataloguing what's ailing her. "Mostly looks like body damage," he assesses after looking under the hood. Yeah, it needs some new spark plugs, and probably wouldn't complain about a fresh serpentine belt, either. But all in all, it looks like the poor thing was abandoned for the sake of a smashed up back end. Apparently Cooter agrees with Luke's announcement, from where he's standing and grunting over Luke's shoulder. "Get me a mallet, would you?" He came to town to get away from people that stand too close.

And within a few seconds he's got the back bumper off, banging it back into some kind of reasonable shape, while Cooter's at the front end, tinkering in the car's guts.

"All right, Luke Duke," interrupts the peaceful racket of a working mechanic's shop.

"What's he doing here?" Luke stops banging long enough to ask. It gets him a hiccupped _ijit_ from the affronted man in question.

"That's my oil change," Cooter informs him. "I'll be right there, Rosco."

"All right, Luke Duke," the sheriff starts again. Apparently Luke didn't properly quake in his boots the first time. "My deputy done told me about that fight you Duke boys started last night. You're just, why you're just lucky I don't cuff you and—"

"Stuff me, yeah, I know, Rosco. Except we didn't start it." Not really, not entirely. Bo's impulsive, he doesn't back down if a fight's offered. He's got a temper and he might just have thought he was protecting Luke's honor last night. He's an idiot, maybe, but he's a Duke. And it's just habit for Dukes to defend Dukes. "That one dude started it by sassing Daisy."

"That ain't what I heard! Khee!" Tight little smile on Rosco's lips, and he's all but saying _I got you now_. Which means he's got nothing, other than some time to kill harassing Dukes. "I heard you done broke that Billy's nose. Now that right there is assault and battery."

"If he's the one that was holding Bo back giving his buddy a free shot at my cousin's ribs, yeah, I probably broke his nose for him," Luke agrees. "He pressing charges?"

"Jit! Uh no, no he's not," and poor Rosco's heart is all broken to pieces at the notion. "But you Duke boys, you better watch it! I told Boss, I said, now that that no good Bo Duke is back, there's gonna be trouble in Hazzard. And just see if I wasn't right about that, just you see, khee!"

"Bo ain't started nothing, Rosco," Luke warns. He never has, really, and if anyone's ever been the troublemaking Duke, it's been Luke. It's half pride that makes him say, "Bo ain't no trouble to you nor nobody. You want to arrest someone, you go after them boys was beating up on him last night." Okay, so he's defending Bo as well as his own pride, but that's as much coincidence as anything.

"Rosco," Cooter interrupts, stepping into the line of the glower Luke's leveling at the sheriff. "Let's go get ourselves a look at your cruiser."

Luke goes back to banging on the bumper. Nice solid hits, reverberating back up his arm. One because Rosco's looking for trouble in a way he hasn't in months, another for the way Bo's got no control over his fists, and about three more for the guy that held his cousin, plus four for the brute that would hit a man that was being pinned that way.

* * *

It's a slaughter. Luke's been sacrificing one log after another to the blade of the axe, all afternoon. Bo practically has to wade through the splinters and sawdust to get near his cousin. Blind fury behind the destruction there in the farmyard, and soon the whole pile will be no more than kindling. Which is all right, spring's getting ready to storm its way into Hazzard any day now in those black clouds that have been building over the last few days. They won't need wood until next winter, and by then all these twigs Luke's whittling out of logs will be rotted away to nothing.

Bo knows why he's doing it. Used to be some kind of punishment on Jesse's part. Luke's temper would flare at a perceived injustice, he'd take a swipe at something or someone and Jesse would take him out to the barn. The words that followed the whipping were loud enough to be heard anywhere in the farmyard. About how, if Luke had a hankering need to be hitting things, he could just take that axe over there to the woodpile. Somewhere along the way, his cousin had figured out short-circuiting the whole system, skipping past the whipping and storming straight out to the woodpile to reduce it to splinters.

It's black, seething anger that brings his cousin out here, and Bo reckons there's no point in short-circuiting that system anymore. Jesse's not going to whip them for fighting, not now that they're bigger than the old man. If Luke needs to hit him, well, he might as well just go ahead and get it over with.

_Because this is my home._

_Don't you never forget that._

"Luke," he says, gets ignored. "Luke!" Louder that time, and his cousin looks up long enough to register his presence, then back at the log in front of him that's clearly way too big for Luke's liking and must be reduced down to dust. "Luke!" He's as close as he dares to get. No telling if his cousin will give in and put down the axe, or take another swing. "What do you want me to do? Dang it!" Despite what Jesse says, if Luke wants him to leave, he will. Can't go far, he's locked into Hazzard, but if he needs to be sleeping in a different bed, one that's more than four feet away from Luke's, well, he's pretty sure Cooter can put him up.

Luke lifts the axe into an impressive swing that sinks it down into the chopping block.

"I want you to get out of the way so's I can actually get some work done here." Quiet, deadly quiet.

"Work," Bo laughs. No humor at all, maybe it's closer to a bark. "That ain't work, Luke, it's a mess."

His cousin's fingers still rest on the axe handle. "Whatever you want to call it, Bo. You ain't in no position to do it, so clear out and let me get at it."

Hard to say whether that's a dig, or just the way Luke sees things. The axe has never been Bo's friend, but if he needs to, he can split wood, bruised ribs or no. "I'll get out of your way," Bo offers, "when you tell me what you want me to do. How long, Luke?"

His cousin feigns innocence, wood chips on his shirt and in his hair and his foot all but tapping as he waits for Bo to quit interrupting his very important date with the remnants of a dead maple tree. "How long what?"

"How long you gonna hate me?" There it is, out in the open for Luke to deny. "You wanna hit me? Will that make it better? Go ahead." Luke makes no moves, says nothing at all. Doesn't even do Bo the courtesy of folding his arms across his chest in denial of feeling anything at all. "How long Luke? When are you gonna let me work beside you, or go to the Boar's Nest with you, not because Jesse told you to, but because you want to? What's it going to take, another eighteen months?" One for every month Bo was away, and at least that would be closed-ended. A stiff price, Luke would be a stingy miser to make him pay back every minute, but one day, one hour it would be over and he'd have his cousin back.

"Things change, Bo," is all the man says before letting his fingers grip tightly around the axe handle again. "Now take a step back. You don't need to be getting hurt."

Right, like the axe could hurt him after Luke's dismissal, just like that.

* * *

"Luke," has that same annoying sound as a sheriff's siren wailing in the air around him. And he pays it just as much attention.

The Sunbird was in fine condition by the time he left Cooter's. Still needed new spark plugs, but the mechanic would take care of that when he got done doing maintenance work on the county vehicles. Luke had to leave, couldn't shake the image of taking the dang thing for a drive and wrapping it around a tree, just so he could bang the dents out of it again. So he'd said a civil goodbye and come home to get at the woodpile. It's a more productive activity, really. At least they'll keep the house warm by burning his handiwork, and he can come out and chop some more.

"Luke!" is just as persistent as Rosco's siren, too. He looks up, rough equivalent to checking his rearview mirror. Bo's face is red, eyebrows down. Yeah, Luke feels about the same. But, much like a sheriff's car during a high speed chase, Bo is far enough away that Luke can just keep on going the same speed he has been. Back to the task at hand. "Luke!" And now his cousin's coming closer, threatening to step within the range of the axe's blade. "What do you want me to do? Dang it!"

Stay out of trouble, Luke wants to say. Go away and let me do what I got to. But he doesn't have to say anything; Bo ought to know well enough when to leave him alone. The boy wasn't gone_ that_ long.

Bo's doing a fine job of pretending he doesn't know what Luke wants from him, of acting like it's perfectly fine to interrupt him right now. So he lifts the axe and drives it into the chopping block with a solid thud that reverberates right up to his shoulder. Nice little vibration there to remind him to keep that arm in check.

Bo's about to bait him, it's right there in those fuzzy eyebrows, pulled down tight over his eyes. Boy has never learned not to telegraph his moves. And that's probably a good thing. If Luke didn't know what was coming, couldn't slow his breath down and calm his muscles into stillness, he might actually lash out the way Bo's about to beg him to.

"I want you to get out of the way so's I can actually get some work done here." Calm, steady calm.

"Work," Bo laughs, or maybe it's closer to choking. It's an attempt at superiority, and pointing out Luke's folly, but it fails. "That ain't work, Luke, it's a mess."

"Whatever you want to call it, Bo. You ain't in no position to do it." Never has been really. Back in his freckled days, Bo's upper body lacked the strength, and even as he got older he never really did figure out how much of the chore took brute strength and how much was finesse. And now, with that welt on his gut, it'll hurt him just to lift the axe over his head. "So clear out and let me get at it."

"I'll get out of your way," Bo offers, "when you tell me what you want me to do." And that's just stupid, he's already explained very clearly what he wants Bo to do. So he just stands there, fingertips brushing across the smoothness of the handle underneath them. Steady, calm. "How long, Luke?"

"How long what?" His fingers are itching, shoulder muscles aching, to get back to chopping. To let each pulsation up his arms, each spray of sawdust in his face, each thud that echoes across the farmyard, keep him steady, calm.

"How long you gonna hate me?" That's a stupid question. "You wanna hit me?" Even stupider. "Will that make it better? Go ahead." He presents his chin for the punching, as if Luke would consider it for even a second. Oh he's mad enough to hit things, that's why he's splitting wood. But it's not going to be Bo. Not going to be Rosco, either, as close as he came to it this morning.

"How long Luke? When are you gonna let me work beside you, or go to the Boar's Nest with you, not because Jesse told you to, but because you want to? What's it going to take, another eighteen months?" A sentence for running off with Diane. It's a fascinating notion. Nothing Luke's got any interest in holding his cousin to, though.

"Things change, Bo," is all he's got to say on the subject. Bo has changed, Hazzard has changed, neither for the better. "Now take a step back. You don't need to be getting hurt."


	5. The World's Upside Down

_**Author's note: **Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? We may never know the answer to that one, but for sure, if you take Bo Duke out of Hazzard for eighteen months, there will be some changes in the way the town operates. This chapter sort of grazes the surface of that idea; later chapters will address it a little more directly._

_And what the heck, since I'm noting things anyway, I might as well mention how I don't own any of the characters, even (epsecially) Diane Benson, and I don't earn anything from writing about them. _

_Thanks to everyone for reading – hope you're enjoying this one!_

**

* * *

**

Chapter 5 – The World's Upside Down

The farm is his home, and Jesse doesn't want him to forget that. Daisy loves him. Luke won't admit to having any grudges, which makes it impossible to get him to let them go. There's nothing any of them, it seems, can give Bo that's anything close to an answer about how to fix the mess that his relationship with Luke has become.

He reckons he has some ideas of his own, solutions to part of the problem, anyway. And maybe that's the whole point. It's his mess, really, all of his own making. Could be he's the only one that can clean it up.

Cooter could look happier to see him. It's not like he's done anything that would upset the man's applecart.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of so many visits from Dukes over the last few days?" It's friendly enough, but guarded, like he's expecting trouble. Shoot, all Cooter's got to do is ask Luke and he'll hear that there's nothing wrong, nothing at all. There's nothing wrong between him and Bo because there's nothing there between them to go wrong.

But there's no point in sending an inquisitive mechanic to the farm only to have Luke pretend not to even know who Bo is. (And that right there might just be the slightest exaggeration.) "Thought you might need some help," he admits instead.

Cooter's laugh is wry, a little twisted up, like the kind of thing he'd give Rosco in the middle of a list of trumped up charges. "Well," he says, scratching at the back of his neck. "Life sure used to be easier when you boys came here to fix your own car and just about stole the parts right out from under my nose."

"We always paid you for them," Bo defends. "Eventually. You ain't still got no tab on us, do you?"

Cooter's hand comes off his neck to wave in the air as dismissal of the notion. _No harm meant, just a joke_ is all contained is that quick movement. "Well," he says, "Luke already banged the Sunbird back into shape. I suppose we could go find us something in the junkyard for you to beat on."

Maybe it's a joke, but Bo doesn't get it. His head shakes and he feels the muscles in his shoulders tighten with frustration. "I ain't looking for nothing to beat on, Cooter. I want a job." Or maybe it's having to say those words, knowing that taking that one job with the carnival has led him into a lifestyle where he's always going to need to punch a clock, not like the Bo Duke of old.

Great, just great, Cooter's laughing at him. His humiliation is complete. He stares at the mechanic, flat-lipped, waiting for the amusement to be over.

"Oh," Cooter says, catching on like he always does, a bit late. "You're serious. Well, I'll tell you Bo," and that hand's at the back of his neck again, a nervous, twitching sort of a gesture. "Ain't hardly got enough business to keep _me_ busy. And I sure as heck ain't earning enough to pay for help." And Bo thought the mechanic's shaved face was a surprise. Seems a lot of things have changed while he was gone. "Why you looking for a job, anyways? Ain't you needed on the farm? Seems like the only thing I ever heard from you Duke boys was 'we can't take no jobs because—'"

"Well," Bo interrupts, "that was then. Now I need a job."

"How come?" Cooter presses.

He weighs the size of the town and the speed of the rumor mill against the fact that Cooter's a lifelong friend. Reckons he has no real good reason not to answer. "I figure the best way I can help out on the farm is to earn some money so's Luke can hire who he wants to help with the planting. He sure don't want me."

Bo's about dang sick of the way his friend keeps laughing at the things he says. He's got no idea what's so all fired funny about Luke not wanting him around anyway. "Dang it, Cooter!" he can't help snapping. "Knock it off, wouldja?"

"I'm sorry," is the gasping response as the man catches his breath. Bo finds himself hoping he just about chokes on it. "I'm sorry. You think Luke _wants_ to hire hands to work the farm?"

"I don't know what Luke wants." He's trying to keep control of himself, and Cooter's not a lot of help with regard to that. "Other than I know he don't want me."

"Bo," Cooter says, as he walks over to that rat's nest he casually refers to as a desk. Considers it for a second; the invoices lying haphazardly wherever they got dropped, tools, empty beer cans, yesterday's lunch, then sweeps it all off the surface with one grand arm gesture. It's kind of dramatic, but also wholly successful. Nothing's left on top of the desk except a spinning pen. "Have a seat," he offers.

It would be a waste of a perfectly disastrous mess not to take the man up on it, so he does, hoists himself right up on the wooden surface of the old thing, while Cooter takes to the chair below it.

"I always wanted to do that," he says, chuckling. Bo watches the remnants from one of the cans fizzle into the floor. Guesses they weren't all completely empty. Cooter's talking again: "You got any idea how many hands Luke's gone through since you been gone?"

Of course he doesn't. Oh, he called home sometimes, at least at first. Jesse was always real glad to hear from him and Daisy kept him up to date on the gossip. Luke somehow always got mysteriously busy when Bo called, even if it was after dark and his cousin had no business being out in the fields. He didn't hear much about the day to day life of the farm; mainly Jesse reassured him that things were progressing. Beyond that, he never had a clue.

And over the last year, he stopped calling. Diane snarled about the cost of long-distance charges, and it wasn't like he was actually enjoying talking to his family anyway. Mostly the phone started to make him homesick, which led to Diane reminding him that he'd been nothing more than a hick plowboy when she found him. Now, thanks to her, he was pulling in crowds by the thousands. She'd suggest he could go back home and be the nothing he'd been before, he could walk right back into the shadow of his cousin, if that was what he really wanted. Luke, she posited, suffered from petty jealousy, and as long as Bo stuck near him, he'd never be allowed to make any real progress. Oh, he might win a few, local dirt track races, but he'd never hit anything close to the big time, because his loser of a cousin would hold him back.

In truth, he'd stopped calling home because he didn't want to hear Diane badmouth Luke anymore, not when he was running out of ways to refute her. Didn't help that the man wouldn't talk to him, left him with no words to fight back against Diane's description of his cousin. He reckoned so long as they both stopped talking about Hazzard and the folk that he'd left behind, maybe everyone would be happier. Hadn't worked out, but he'd given it a good, solid try.

"No," he says, finally.

"Well, neither do I," Cooter informs him. "But it was a lot." It's nice to know his money was well spent. "Couldn't stand a dang one of them. And all them men that hired themselves out each season, well they done warned each other. Don't bother with the Duke farm, they'd say. You can't please them people and you won't last the season. Best to find work anywheres else." Cooter leaned back in his chair, feet up on the desk right next to Bo's leg. "You want to hear something else?" Cooter asks.

"Do I got a choice?"

The mechanic doesn't hear him, or pretends not to anyway. "Luke ain't been nothing but miserable since you left."

Bo snorts. "He ain't been nothing but miserable since I got back, neither."

This gets dismissed with another wave of Cooter's hand. For the first time, Bo notices how clean it is, danged pink. The man really must not have enough to do, if he's taken to cleaning himself now and again, and if that clean sticks to him for more than the time it takes to drive from home to work. "I've known Luke all my life," he says, and Bo would like to welcome him to the club. All of Hazzard's known Luke that long; some claim to have known him back when he was just a twinkle in his daddy's eye. "I've seen him react to a whole mess of different things. Like when your folks died. I was pretty young, but he weren't even school age yet. And you was just a baby. Oh, he was spitting mad, wouldn't let no one near him, not until his mama came home. Wouldn't listen to no one or believe she wasn't never coming back. I don't know how long he fought it, but your Uncle Jesse could tell you. I know it took a long time before he stopped screaming at everyone to leave him alone."

Huh, that's an interesting image, Luke throwing an unabashed tantrum. Hard to imagine, really. His cousin hardly ever lets on to feeling pain of the physical kind, much less emotional.

"By the time your Aunt Lavinia died, he was older." Ten to be exact, and Bo can remember it just fine. Luke was cool, detached. He didn't want anything to do with wakes or funerals. "He mostly looked after you and Daisy while the adults mourned. You know how a Hazzard wake goes, Bo. Ain't a sober person in the room. 'Cept I'm pretty sure your uncle didn't drink nothing, but he was too grief-stricken to pay close attention to his surroundings. Anyways, Luke kept you two away from it. Didn't let himself grieve, maybe ever. Got into a lot of fights at school after, though." Odd, Bo doesn't remember that part, and he should. Seems like he always knew whenever Luke got in trouble at school, because that trouble followed him right home in the form of a whipping, then he couldn't be spoken to for days.

"And then," Cooter says, "there was what he was like when he came back from the service." Yeah, they don't need to go over that. Bo remembers just as well as Cooter does how Luke didn't want anything to do with anyone, how he spent daylight hours patrolling the property out of some kind of habit, and night hours up at the still, alone. Went on that way until he collapsed. Somewhere in there, Bo lured him out of it with the first stumbling steps toward building the General's engine.

"I remember," Bo says, just so Cooter won't expand on the thought.

"Figured you would," his friend answers. "And in all them times, not once would I say he came close to being as miserable as he's been since you left."

"Don't matter none," Bo tells him. "Me coming back ain't made him nothing but more miserable."

"Yeah, well," Cooter tells him. "That's just because he's forgotten how to have fun. You get him out in the General there, and there's no telling what it'd do for him."

Easier said than done.

* * *

There's really nothing left to do. Maudine's as ready as that stubborn beast can be to do her part of the planting (and Jesse only takes her out there to make her feel useful anyway), the field's been prepped, the sky's hanging close and low, waiting to explode into spring storms. The fence line is secure, the seed's in the barn, and there's nothing left for a body to do.

Which is why Luke's retuning an already tuned tractor. Tsks at a bit of oxidation he missed on his last pass through this engine.

Jesse's coming at him with purpose. Not the sauntering old man steps he normally uses when he's going to come out and talk of moonshine, while imparting a subtext about family. No this here is it – Luke's in for a whipping. He tips his head back down into the task at hand.

"Thought you was done with that." Jesse can move pretty dang quick when he wants to. He was half a farmyard away just seconds ago.

"I was," he admits, scraping at the oxidation anyway. It's not enough to hurt anything or even come close, but it's there, just begging to be scraped at.

Jesse looks around his shoulder to see what's so interesting within the tractor's hood. Shakes his head at the nothing but perfectly clean engine inside, but that's just because Luke got the last of the grunge cleaned out just now.

"Luke," has the unmistakable tone of an impending lecture. "Where's Bo?" is just putting it off for a few words.

There's nothing more to look at in the tractor's engine, at least nothing bigger than fragments of maple buds that are just starting to crumble out of the trees. Probably ought to close the hood against them, but Luke's brushing them away now, instead. "Took off in the General," he answers.

Jesse nods, the reaches up to grab the metal above Luke's head. Best to duck out of the way right now; that sucker's getting closed whether Luke wants it to or not. "Why ain't you with him?" gets punctuated by the clunk of the lid slamming shut.

If he were still a little boy he'd kick at the dirt and mumble something about how he didn't know, sir. Finds himself wishing he could do it now, even if it would lead to a whipping. It would be something to say, to do, other than stand here and stumble over thoughts about how he has better things to do than chase around after his cousin, when both he and Jesse know he doesn't.

"I tried to be patient with you, Luke_._ 'That boy, he don't take too easy to change,' that's what I told myself." That's a goad. Luke takes as well to change as anyone else in the family; in fact he's usually the one that ends up having to point out to everyone else that things just ain't the same as they used to be. "But I'm sick of it now." See Luke's supposed to stomp his feet here, get angry and yell about how he can too tolerate change. Then he's supposed to prove it by behaving, by chasing down his poor, aggrieved cousin and playing nice. In exchange for the sacrifice of his pride he'll get a pat on the head. Except he's not six anymore, and his head's too high for Jesse to properly pat anyway.

"Luke." It's still trying to be a lecture, trying to be patient with him and teach him something about family and farming and love and life. It fails. What had been a faraway look turns on him, becomes solid, pinning him down to the spot. "Go get him. Bring him back here, and welcome him home proper. Mean it this time."

Shoot, the boy's been home for almost three weeks. Seems stupid to reenact the welcoming ritual now. Besides, "I don't know where he is." Oh, that right there is a mistake. Just look at the red creeping high onto Jesse's cheeks, the mouth opened like it's going to give him what for. This pause right here is a generous offer. _You want to rethink that statement, boy?_

But there's no point in that, considering he hasn't had a clear thought in his head for the past few weeks. It's as though having his cousin back in the same room with him has filled Luke's brain with the kind of chaos that swirls around in the blonde head of Bo's. He feels things, oh, he feels a hell of a lot more than he wants to, but there's just no way to think or make sense, even to himself. Like getting livid at Rosco, instead of maintaining cool amusement.

It's impossible to rethink a thing that was never truly thought about in the first place. But it's a fact – Bo didn't say where he was going, didn't say anything at all really, left Luke to interpret the dust cloud the General left behind. And it was remarkably easy to do – wherever Bo went, he was frustrated and angry about it. Yeah, Luke could sympathize with that.

The reprieve is over. "Not knowing where he is ain't never been a hindrance to you finding him when you wanted to before. And you best start wanting to find him now. You best never stop wanting to find him again."

And that's not fair, really. It wasn't him that went chasing after some girl out of Hazzard. But fairness holds no water against Jesse's tone, and the way he means exactly what he says. Luke nods to acknowledge the seriousness of the command, then lifts a foot to climb onto the tractor.

His leg gets smacked. Not hard, doesn't hurt, but it carries its own message. For all the threat of whippings, Jesse hasn't raised a hand to any of them since they reached the age of majority.

"Now," his uncle insists. "Right now, and don't be acting like you got to do one single thing first. Ain't nothing on this farm I can't do just fine while you're gone, whether it's putting away the tractor or feeding the goats or anything else you got in mind. So you just git!" It's an impressive fit that his uncle's pitching. Luke just gets.

And it would make the old man proud to know that Bo's in the first place Luke looks. More proof that his cousin's untidy thoughts are infecting his usually orderly mind.

"Speak of the devil," Cooter says from where he's leaning back in his chair like a fool that's got no idea how seriously tipping head first into the concrete would scramble his brains. Bo's sitting up on the man's desk, feet not quite reaching the mess that's spread across the floor below. Looks like a little boy up there, legs swinging, wide eyes studying Luke.

"Hey, Cooter," he says because he has to. Wishes, in moments like this, that there weren't social rules to a town like Hazzard. In the military, a grunt was enough to convey thoughts, whatever they were. Seems like there's merit in that. "I hate to interrupt y'all," he really does, "but Jesse wants you home, Bo."

That's not the way he's been mandated to say it. It's all he's got any plans to say in front of anyone outside his family. What he's going to say when it's just him and Bo, he's got no idea.

"All right," Bo agrees readily enough. No fear or thoughts of whippings that could await him there; childhood should have taught him better. Used to be that being beckoned by Jesse Duke meant confessions, the strap, and dinner off the mantelpiece, if at all. Then again, Bo always reckoned Luke would take his whippings for him, and most of the time, he did. This time's not going to be any exception. "Let's take the General," the fool suggests as he's heading for the door.

"Nope," Luke answers. "We ain't got no good reason to be leaving no cars behind here." And Cooter's seen enough of the Dukes for one week.

Except apparently the mechanic doesn't agree. "I can bring your car home later, Lukas," he offers.

Luke sets his eyes hard on their friend. "I already said no," he makes clear. No need for Cooter and Bo to go scheming up some great plan about how the two Duke boys only need one car between them. Sharing everything they ever had is part of what got the two of them into this mess, anyway. "Come on, Bo."

His cousin's head nods, a little squint in there to show how little he likes Luke's tone of voice, and he steps outside into the gray light.

* * *

Cooter, he reckons, is right. Luke's forgotten fun, but it's a deliberate kind of forgetfulness, exactly the same way he's always gone about forgetting his manners when it's convenient for him.

And that's fine, just fine with Bo. He can be equally deliberate. Deliberate in the speed with which he takes turns, in the overland shortcuts he selects. Approaches the natural ramp at the edge of Dry Creek with deliberate aim. The way he skirts the ditch at the edge of Lenora Road is deliberate, too, skimming along on the slick, hard-packed clay. The General understands his need to be deliberate, responds smoothly to the slightest pressure from his fingers. Driving this car is like riding a bike – not only will he never forget how, but the precision of each move has almost as much to do with small shifts in his bodyweight as it does with actually turning the steering wheel. He and the car are one, which is why the General picks precisely the wrong moment to blow a tire. Sends Bo skidding straight for the culvert on his right. (_Keep her on the road, Bo_, is Luke's voice ringing in his ear like a reminder of all the times this happened with his cousin at his side. He fights the wheel, tries to heed the advice.) The ditch to the left lurches at him, catches his good tire. One more crank of the wheel, but the momentum's too strong in the wrong direction, gravity is his enemy, and the General betrays him.

He's carsick; the world's upside down. His left hip feels bruised from where it must have slammed against the door on the way around. Nothing he can't live with, but it's not pleasant, the way his weight pulling against the seatbelt aggravates it. The clasp doesn't want to let loose, not until he's fought it for a minute. When his skull hits the headliner and the steel roof underneath, it feels just about as good as the bruise on his hip, but he's free. Takes him a second to orient himself, and find the way out. Sits in the dirt for a minute, figuring out the angles. Looks like he ricocheted off that sapling on his way in here. At least he seems to have landed in a large enough clearing to flip the car over without doing it any further damage. But there's no way he's taking it home tonight. He's going to need help.

He has to crawl back in to find the CB handset.

"Lost Sheep Two calling Lost Sheep One," comes out by rote like the times tables he learned in third grade. Hopes that the antenna is not so badly damaged that he can't broadcast. He's not sure he could walk home now if he needed to. "Lost Sheep One, you out there?" And more importantly, does Luke use this channel anymore?

"You got Lost Sheep One here," comes the answer. "You all right, Lost Sheep Two?" Must be obvious that he's not – Luke's genuinely concerned.

"I need help out here on Lenora Road," he admits.

* * *

"Damn it!" he hollers. Hates how angry he sounds, hates how his insides churn with the desire to do violence. Control, he wants control, but seeing Bo there, pasty-skinned, lip biting, moving slowly and with care, hand rubbing at his head and blank look to his eyes is more than he seems to be able to handle.

At least, he thinks, he asked Bo if he was all right first. At least he checked his cousin over, made him recite his name and the date and use those dazed eyes to trace the movement of his forefinger before he lost it. At least he wrapped one arm around Bo's neck first, felt his cousin's flighty heartbeat and trembling body against his own for a quick second. And maybe, just maybe he reassured Bo before his control jumped the tracks.

"Damn it," he yells again, because Bo is hurt, because his cousin traveled the whole southeast tempting death to just walk right up and claim him out of the air as he floated over more parked cars than there was population in some of those towns. Because Luke knew he was taking his life into his hands, warned him, tried to stop him. Hit him that first time, to keep him from doing it. All those fool stunts his cousin pulled every week, and each Saturday Luke waited for some hospital in the middle of East Nowheresville to call and tell them they needed to make the trip out there right away, that Bo didn't have long, and if they were very lucky, they might just get to see him alive one last time. All those months of just knowing Bo was about to bring upon himself the kind of trouble Luke couldn't get him out of, and it never happened. Not until Bo came home, not until he was right there where Luke could have kept an eye on him, but he didn't. He refused to get in the General, had no plans of ever letting himself get anywhere near his own past and—

"Damn it," comes out one more time, followed by his foot kicking out against the General, the dirt he slid across before coming to a stop, the twisting in his gut, the lost and sick look in Bo's eyes.

The window behind the passenger door must have already been cracked; it shatters when Luke's boot impacts it. There's the echoing tinkle of glass, and then this particular patch of Hazzard wasteland goes silent.


	6. Applause and the Fantasy of Fame

_**Author's note:** All right, so it's not Monday and I've been pretty religious about posting this one on that day. But work this week promises to take all of my time and energy, so here's chapter six. As to seven... we'll see if it makes it up next Monday or not. Could be a bit late._

_Don't own, don't earn, do have fun -- hope you do, too!_

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* * *

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**Chapter 6 – Applause and the Fantasy of Fame**

By the time they get home, Jesse's fully aware of what happened to them. Heck, all of Hazzard's probably pretty clear on it by now, between what got broadcast over the CB airwaves and the rumor mill. He can just about hear the early-bird supper crowd at the Hazzard Diner talking about it, how that Bo Duke, supposed to be such a great stunt driver, couldn't even get the General home on a perfectly boring afternoon, with no traffic anywhere nearby.

Not that his driving reputation matters anymore. Luke was probably as right about that as he was about everything else, and NASCAR's got no real interest in man with a stunt driving past. All the same, Hazzard might just be the only place where he cares about his driving reputation. It's where everyone that's ever really mattered to him lives.

"You all right?" Jesse asks, eyeing him carefully.

"Ain't nothing hurt but my pride," he says. Expects Luke to refute him, to point out how he's bruised up and should probably see Doc Petticord. They went around about that on the side of the road, while they waited for the wrecker. Sometime after Luke pitched his fit and Bo reckoned his cousin might just get back into that olive drab car of his and strand him and the General right where they were, Luke asked him where it hurt. Pointed out that there was no way to roll a car without feeling it somewhere. Bo mentioned his bruised hip, and watched as Luke's blue eyes fixed themselves on the horizon, or maybe it was the road he was looking at, the churned up dirt that told the story of an out-of-control car.

"You got a headache, too," he observed. Bo didn't deny it, even if there was no reason in the world Luke should know it to be true. "You should see the doc. Could be a concussion."

He would have shaken his head, but his stomach still hadn't figured out which way was up. He didn't need to send it reeling again, so he just said, "No, I didn't hit it that hard. Just bumped it when the seatbelt finally let go."

Luke had done some more nodding about that, still not looking at him. That was fine, Bo didn't reckon he much wanted to be looked at right then anyway. Didn't want to be standing there on the side of the road with Luke, waiting and having no idea what to say. "Maybe we ought to roll the car back over onto his wheels." It would keep them busy for a few minutes, anyway.

But Luke just shook his head. "Me and Cooter can do that. You ain't looking right," which was an interesting thing for a man who hadn't looked at him in the last few minutes to say. "You should sit." And Luke had pointed off to that ugly car of his, parked on the other side of the road, which in that moment looked like as safe a place to rest as any he'd known. So he'd gone over there, settled into Luke's passenger seat, and rested. Watched Cooter arrive, saw how he and Luke heaved and rocked until the General was on his wheels again, then closed his eyes. Woke up when the car lurched forward and Luke was driving them home.

"He'll be fine," Luke affirms to Jesse. "He probably ought to rest, though."

Which is how he gets sent to his room. Despite Jesse's worries, and whatever that fit of Luke's was, he's fine. Doesn't need rest, which is why it surprises him when Daisy's waking him up to give him dinner. The light has gotten dingier since he closed his eyes, and the wind's gusting up some, making the curtains float. Daisy's face is hovering there, unabashed concern. She stays and eats with him, tells him how Terri-Ann and Lucy Mae have been asking after him, then lists more girls than he's ever known lived in Hazzard, all of which claim to have dated him since he got back to town. Interesting to learn, when he hasn't spent more than the time it takes to say hello with any of them, but it's good to know the Hazzard rumor mill is still the strongest franchise in the county.

When the meal's done Daisy tuts and pats his face, starts in on the platitudes about how things will look better in the morning and it's always darkest before dawn. Just about the time he starts worrying that she's going to burst into song preaching on the nature of how the sun'll come out tomorrow, he goes digging into the drawer in the night table between the two beds. Has to make his way all the way to the bottom before he finds that old deck of cards he was just starting to worry that Luke had tossed in the trash while he was away. He lets her beat him at Rummy before she's off to work, and he's got nothing to do.

Next time he's conscious it's full dark and there's movement and sound, rain pelting off the old tin roof, and a chill in the air. One window slaps shut, then the other and, "Go back to sleep, Bo," Luke's saying. When he fishes around for the blanket that got kicked to the foot of his bed, it gets handed to him. He might or might not be awake enough to say thanks.

It's full light glowing pink behind his eyelids that finally rouses him for good. Tests out his hip by rolling over, and his head by sitting up. Not too bad, really. Oh, he's not ready to run a marathon, but that's no loss really. Running a marathon's not ever been something he was ready to do.

He's alone, and there's no explaining how much he misses that grouchy voice telling him to get out of bed while his socks are getting lobbed at him. But he reckons Jesse's given Luke a reprieve from looking after him.

Getting dressed is a little less pleasant than sitting up was, but he manages. Tests his weight on his legs, and he's fine, really. The important thing is not to limp, and it looks like he can manage it. Doesn't need to be grounded over the likes of a bruise.

Breakfast is just him and Jesse, though Daisy's no further than the back porch, scrubbing at the week's laundry. Makes him wish he could get her a machine to do it in; it just doesn't seem fair that Diane had a little washer and dryer set in her RV, just for herself, and here Daisy's got to scrub four people's clothes in a tub on the back porch. The carnival circuit might have been worth it if he could have earned enough to do more than just replace his own labor here at the farm. He might have put up with the stony silence that developed between him and Diane, might have found a way to do the same stunt day in and day out, if it had done a lick of real good for the people he left behind.

He just about does calisthenics for Jesse to prove he's not broken anywhere. Only halfway works – his uncle's looking at him in that same way he always did when he was going to start asking questions that would trap Bo within his own tall tales.

_So, Mr. Keating just gave you them watermelons?_

_Yes, sir._ Standing perfectly still, no fidgeting because that always gave him away.

_So when I go and talk to him, he's not gonna tell me he don't know what you're talking about?_

Trick question. _No, sir._ Couldn't fall for it, had to stick to his story.

_So when he came by an hour ago, and told me he was missing some melons, and did I know anything about it, he was lying then?_

_I don't know, sir. _

_I can't say as I've ever known Kevin Keating to lie…_

Eyes on his toes, concentrating on keeping them still, keeping them from making him run right out of the house and into the fields where he could only hide for so long anyway.

_But if you tell me he is, well I'll believe you boy. I know you'd never lie to your Uncle Jesse._

Tears, shame, whipping, more tears and an afternoon spent pulling weeds from Mrs. Keating's garden, followed by an evening alone in his room.

He's already spent enough time in his room today. "Ain't nothing but a bruise or two, Jesse," he swears. The old man nods, then goes back to his eggs. Thinking, probably, of how to go about proving that Bo's not fit to be upright. "Can I borrow the pickup?" he asks, before his uncle can get there.

Jesse eyeballs him like he's considering saying something, maybe refusing, but eventually he just nods. "Bring it back with a full tank," is the only condition.

So he makes one more trip into the bedroom, changes into that t-shirt Daisy's never been able to get the stains out of, the same one he's been wearing on car-repair days since he was eighteen. Wallet in his pocket, boots on his feet, and he's good to go.

At least he doesn't need an excuse to leave the farm today, doesn't have to explain to a one of his family where he's going. Some things go without saying.

Cooter's not surprised to see him, either.

"How's he doing?" Bo asks.

The mechanic takes off that ugly, old baseball cap to scratch at his hair. Bo winces as he puts it back on; the thing might have been yellow once, but now it's such an unfortunate shade of gray that Bo wouldn't want it anywhere near his own head. "Well, now. He ain't so good, but I think he's about to be on the mend, buddyroe."

Bo nods; Cooter's breaking it to him gently. "What's he gonna need?" Aside from a lot of brute strength to bang out those dents – Bo can see that much for himself.

"Well," the mechanic says, and he's enjoying himself. Cooter's always loved drawing these things out to a rapt audience that's just waiting for the second shoe to fall. "I ain't been all over him yet, but ain't no turtle ever the same once you get him on his back. I can tell you you're gonna need a new front axle."

Yeah, that's the other shoe, all right.

"And while you figure out how you're gonna pay for one of them babies," oh, Bo's got something of an idea how he's going to pay, "we might as well set to work on the body damage."

Which is not exactly how it works out. Bo takes the high ground, assessing where to begin banging dents out, and Cooter goes underneath, just tsking away at each new misery he finds under there.

They've got the day to kill this way, and they do it in companionable silence. They've been at it for an hour by the time Luke walks in.

* * *

"What's he need?" Luke asks, ignoring the way his Aunt Lavinia nags in his head about manners and how it's only fitting to greet people before demanding information. The General's jacked up because he can't stand on all fours; Bo and Cooter are just as single-mindedly interested in getting him back on his feet as Luke is.

"New axle," Bo admits from where he's wrenching off the driver's side front quarter panel. Looks like a trip to the junk yard is in order.

"Sway bar, too," comes from underneath. "Other'n that, he's fine."

Fine, right. Like there aren't more shattered little pieces of him scattered over dead leaves on the side of Lenora Road than there are right here in front of them. Trim from the door, the cover from the left taillight, hell, probably pennies from under the seats – and glass from that triangular window, on the other side, now that the car's upright – just waiting for rain to dig them a permanent grave in the mud out there.

Has to stop his foot from wanting to kick at the car again, to leave more shattered bits of the General scattered across the floor of the garage. "How much of it we gonna find in the junkyard?" he asks, fingers raking hard through his own hair.

"Most of it, I reckon. But it's gonna take some labor to put him back together. Ain't gonna be free," he warns, scooting out from under the car to look at the two of them. It's like the old days, when him and Bo would try to barter away any debts they had. Luke waves his hand in the air at the notion. It's not like Cooter's got anything better to do; he'll help them out, then hold it over their heads for awhile. Business as usual.

He goes over to the wall where the large tools get hung. Used to be he knew this place as well as his own barn, and despite the fact that Cooter's calmed down a lot in the past few years, the shop hasn't changed. Same ordered chaos that only a man who has spent the better part of his youth in here would understand. Finds himself a mallet and heads back to the car.

"He steady enough for me to get inside?" he asks, and Cooter nods his head, watching him. Bo's eyes haven't left him either, as if he's all that interesting to look at climbing into a car he's been in a thousand times, a car he built. "We're gonna need a new headliner, too," he announces, pulling out his knife and cutting the overhead cloth free from its frame. There's no way it would have survived the pounding he's going to have to give the roof to get it back into shape anyway.

Bo's hand reaches in for the remnants of the headliner, just as Luke's finished cutting the last threads. Boy disappears long enough to throw it away, then sets back to dealing with the quarter panel he was already wrestling with. He must get that off, because his shadow moves away again.

Bo and Cooter settle into paying him no mind. It's a wise choice, the same one Jesse made last night. Saw them in, asked after Bo, listened when Luke said his cousin needed rest. Told Luke not to stray too far, that he should come home for dinner and make sure to get enough sleep, but didn't chase him around. Didn't give him any more lectures about how he needed to welcome Bo home, didn't ask whether the accident was Luke's fault. Probably knew it was, that pushing him too far always led to Bo getting hurt, even if it was through indirect means.

He focuses on the task in front of him, sets to banging until his head rings with the sound. It'll probably provide him with another night of restless sleep, this headache he's building for himself. "Much obliged," he hears himself muttering automatically, as somewhere around the time he's got most of the big dents back into their original shape, leaving himself with the always stubborn nicks and dings to work out, a hand reaches into the window again. It's Bo's, offering him a smaller mallet, followed by a can of soda. Yeah, he hasn't quite realized until now how much of a thirst he's working up. It takes awhile before Bo's hand comes in again, this time handing him a simple hammer; right, it's solid steel head will work best against those dings closest the to doors. Reckons he'd better pop off the inside door panels so he can get a look at the damage to the doors themselves, and there's a flat tipped screw driver being handed to him.

It's not a novel thing, working in this kind of symbiosis with Bo. It's how the dang General got built in the first place, the two of them sharing one image, and taking turns giving each other exactly what was needed to accomplish the task. It's fine, really – good on some days, to have someone that knows him that well. Except there's no point, precisely, not if the person whose mind works in that kind of harmony with his is going to go running off after some girl, chasing down applause and the fantasy of fame.

"Lukas," rings out when he stops banging. "Lunch break." He's not hungry and can't afford the Busy Bee Café anyway. But it's for the best that he takes a break from the pounding, if only to be sure that Bo takes one, too. Insistence that he's fine or not, his cousin rolled a car yesterday, and a body doesn't go through that kind of violence without feeling it.

"Coming," he hollers, letting the hammer fall to the seat next to him and pulling himself out the driver's side window, where there's no glass to cut him up. Feels the muscles in his belly working overtime with the effort; he's out of practice for this. Maybe, when he can't sleep tonight, he'll take to doing sit ups. Couldn't hurt him.

They make it as far as the door when Cooter's saying, "Well would you look there." Luke has to push around his too tall cousin to do the looking, but when he does, he has to admit it's an interesting sight.

Suspicious activity around the bank, exactly the kind of thing that hasn't happened in at least a year.

* * *

Suspicious activity around the bank, exactly the kind of thing that happens about once a month, sometimes more often. Like the time Boss tried to burn phone books instead of old money, and then there was that bizarre fake millionaire who stored gold-painted lead bars in there, just so he could steal them from himself.

This one doesn't look that interesting. Mostly there's the strangely stiff movement of the Hazzard folk outside the bank's main door and all the way to the corner, like they've gotten frozen there by some unseen threat, then the scampering of a couple of unknown men into the alleyway.

"Ain't seen that in a coon's age," Cooter comments, and Luke's nodding.

"The other thing we ain't seeing," Luke points out, "is Rosco, or Enos."

Boss, however, comes out the front door, arms waving in exaggerated grief. The details are lost to distance, but the words, "Oh, my my my," ring out across the square.

He looks to Luke, whose shoulders slump. "All right, Bo. Let's go."

* * *

The man must be joking, asking Luke if he can drive, right after pointing out that his car is a useless hunk of nuts and bolts. Oh, Bo doesn't put it quite that way. More like, "You sure that thing's up to it?"

There's nothing wrong with his car. It might not have enough horsepower to jump over thirty-two parked cars, might not have a name and a fancy coat of paint. It might not be loved, but it's been well cared for all the same, and it's in vastly better shape than the General, what with having four inflated tires and all.

"After what you did yesterday? You got to be kidding me." It's supposed to be a joke, maybe. Then again, there's a sour tone behind it that Luke hasn't even invited, it's just joined this party all on its own.

Bo ignores it in favor of getting over to the passenger side of the car by way of the hood. Not so much of a slide as a thump and bump, then he's pulling himself the rest of the way across with his boot heels. Not smart for a man with a black and blue hip, but he pretends to be fine. "I don't know," he announces, charming as ever. "Don't seem to have very good moves to me." Only Bo would blame the car for a poorly executed hood slide.

He takes the Swinger out of the parking lot with rubber-burning flare, just to show Bo a thing or two about what kind of moves the car's got; hears Cooter's rebel yell behind them on his behalf, and they're gone.

Hazzard's townsfolk have gotten slow, making him honk to get them to part so he can get his car into the alley. There's a dark blue sedan that pulls out in front of them, and at least they know what it is they've got to catch. Doesn't look like anything his Swinger can't outrun.

Except, of course, the bank robbers (assuming that's what they really are) don't seem overly concerned about Hazzard's sluggish citizens, don't consider slowing down to avoid pedestrians. Which only sends the poor fools scattering into Luke's path to get away from the car in front of him. That's the first strike against him, and he's slow getting out of the gate.

The second comes when he's skidding around the town square, and a Volkswagen Beetle crawls into his path. Nothing as fancy as what Hughie Hogg's been known to drive, just an old, beaten down car with no good means to get out of their way. He's forced to find a slope in the curb and take his car up on two wheels to get through the narrow opening between the Beetle and the parked cars around it.

Bo's on the high side of the car, fully enjoying himself. Luke reckons that if he makes one false move he's going to wind up with a heavy cousin in his lap, and no access to the stick shift, so he sets his car back down as soon as he can. They've lost more time.

But they see the dust just starting to settle back to the ground on Route 36, so Luke skates the car out of the square and off the last of the pavement. From here it's a straight race.

"Breaker one, breaker one, I may be crazy but I ain't dumb," comes at them through the CB. "This here's Crazy Cooter on your back door, if you need me."

Bo thinks that's real funny, how the wrecker has caught up to them already. "Told you this car ain't got the moves," but that's not fair. Cooter didn't bother with the alley or the square, just waited for Luke to smoke the bad guys out then came straight across Elm Street to Route 36. Besides, the mechanic's already losing ground behind them.

Which is only a slight consolation, when he and Bo are just chasing dust. The blue car itself must be far enough ahead that they never catch sight of it on the turns of this old road. There was talk of straightening it once, making it a real highway. Boss was all for it, but couldn't get the land rights.

"You out here to catch 'em or just enjoy the scenery?" Bo asks. It's a joke, it's the same thing he would have said a year and a half ago. But time has passed, things have changed, Diane happened. Life is not the same series of games it was before he left. Those ruts in front of them are real, can lift a car right off the road with no promise of settling it back down going in a safe direction, those water-filled ditches on either side of the red clay can suck a car in and roll it onto its side, and that, right up there, is the county line, which is no longer permeable. For either him or Bo. Strike three, the boundary that can't neither of them cross. Luke skids the car to a stop and slams his fist onto the steering wheel.

"Move over, Lukas," comes over the airwaves. "I'm shooting through."

He does as he's told, but grabs the CB. "Never mind, Cooter. They've got too good a head start." Nothing to do but slink back into town with their tails between their legs.


	7. Turning the Other Cheek

**Chapter 7 – Turning the Other Cheek**

It could have been a lot of things. Could have been exciting to chase after bank robbers for the first time in eighteen months. Could have been a closer race than it was, though there's no way it could have been successful, not with the obstacles between them and success. But it could have been fun. If Luke wanted it to be.

He didn't, any more than he wants to be spoken to now. Bo knows the movement of the muscles in that jaw, recognizes it for Luke swallowing down any considerations of saying anything at all. And a lifetime of experience tells him to leave his cousin to himself right now.

Back to town they go, because there's nothing better they can do. Never saw a license plate to get a make on, got nothing more than a glimpse of what was probably two men in black, but they can't even swear on the gender, much less any distinguishing features. All they've got is dust in their lungs and that tight, hard look in Luke's eyes. Even Cooter, who gave up the chase when he was told to and is now following behind them with his own tail tucked, has the good sense to keep quiet.

Town is in almost exactly the same disarray as when they left it when they come around the turn and into the square. People are standing around the entrance to the bank, and out in the street in front of it, watching Boss go through gyrations so dramatic it's a wonder he doesn't come tumbling right down the stairs and onto the blacktop. Their fellow Hazzardites have regained some of their reflexes in the last few minutes, and step out of the way so Luke can skid the car up to the curb.

"Sorry, Boss," Bo says, as soon as he gets the door open. "We tried, but we couldn't catch them."

"There they are!" Boss squeals. "Rosco, Enos, arrest them no good Dukes!"

Luke's out of the car now, coming around to stand beside him. "What're you talking about, Boss?" he barks, and it feels like old times. Not like two years ago, either, more like ten or twelve, before they could drive (legally, anyway) and the only means they had to stand up to trouble was to stand together.

"You robbed my bank, is what I'm talking about!" the county commissioner announces in his most aggrieved voice. Even accomplishes some soulful vibrato in there; one truly miserable man. "Why, the whole town done saw two men running from the bank, and then you Duke boys went skidding out of here in that eyesore of a green car right there." Well, that's maybe the only thing him and Boss agree on – Luke's car lacks a great deal in the looks department.

"Just you wait a minute Boss," Bo finds himself yelling while charging toward the man.

There's a squeal, then, "Arrest them, Rosco! For robbery and assaulting a public official!"

He never sees the sheriff coming, he's so focused on the ridiculousness that's the county commissioner. Rosco grabs his hand, and it's automatic to shake him off and turn on the man like it's about to be a fight, but Luke's in his line of vision, shaking his head. Oh, it's not directed at him, it's frustration down to the very core, but the movement reminds him of where he is, and what he'd better not consider doing. Assault and battery is a felony; abuse of a police officer will get him life behind bars. He lets himself be linked to Luke.

"Now wait a minute, Rosco!" That's Cooter, fighting mad. "These boys ain't done nothing except do your job which you wasn't doing." Typical enraged words from a man that's been on the wrong side of the law more than a few times. "They was with me the whole morning!"

And that would be a good enough alibi in any other county in the state, probably the country. But here in Hazzard it gets followed up by, "Cooter, just hush now, just hush or I'll cuff you and stuff you, too. Khee!" Nonsense words, but just as threatening as any genuine English sentence would be in any other town square. "Enos!"

"Yes, sir?" And the deputy appears as magically as Rosco did.

"Take these boys down and put them in lockup." Tight little smile that Bo would give just about anything to wipe off the sheriff's face. But Luke's head's still shaking at the stupidity of it all. Including, most likely, Bo's thoughts, because his cousin's almost always known what they are. "Then come back up here and help me get statements from all these nice people." Their friends and neighbors, who apparently stand ready to accuse the Duke boys of a crime. Oh, Boss has hoodwinked them this time. "Cooter," Rosco snaps, "if you know what's good for you, you'll just go back to your garage there. Ain't nothing to keep me from arresting you for aiding and abetting."

The mechanic's face is still tight and red, but he takes a step back toward his wrecker. "I'll call Uncle Jesse for you boys," he says.

"Now Bo, Luke," Enos starts, has to pause for that nervous little giggle of his that would make better sense coming out of the mouth of a seven-year-old girl in pigtails, "don't you go trying nothing funny, now."

He looks over at Luke – whatever's on his cousin's mind, it's the exact opposite of funny. "We ain't gonna try nothing, Enos," Bo says with a sigh, because it's true. They're going to go quietly.

And quietly they go, if a little roughly, when Luke tugs on the cuffs that link them together. Bo's got no real good idea what that's about, but he snaps, "Ow, Luke!" and it lets up. Right back to quiet until they make their way down the street and into the courthouse. Just two Dukes and Enos, going through the motions of booking them, fingerprints and all, and Luke gets loud.

"You got our danged fingerprints ten times over, Enos. What do you need one more set for?" he growls.

"You know I got to follow regulations, Luke," Enos answers with a tentative smile. Bo doesn't blame him one bit for that scared rabbit look on his face. Luke's obviously building up to another head of steam.

"Regulations," Luke answers, more head shaking about that. Seems like his cousin ought to be dizzy from all the disagreeing he's been doing in the last few minutes. "Regu-damn-lations," he says, and it's a remnant from his military service. Right after he came back, Bo remembers how the word "damn" punctuated just about everything he said. When Jesse chastised him for that kind of language, he informed their uncle he was already toning it down quite a bit. They were at a stalemate for awhile, but eventually Luke either relented or just lost his taste for the word. It's back now. "Ain't that just fine, regu-damn-lations. Is it right there in your code of laws to railroad innocent people, or do you wing that part?"

"Now, Luke, I got orders to follow," Enos tries, but it's no use. His cousin's beyond reason.

"Orders," Luke says. "Ain't there nothing in there about how you need actual evidence before you go arresting people?"

Enos is done with their fingerprints, just mug shots to go and they'll be safely locked away. Bo reckons it might be the best thing, really, to get Luke caged until he calms down.

"Enos," is his attempt to intervene. "You got hundreds of pictures of us. It ain't gonna cause no harm if you wait to get our mug shots until after you go back and get the witness statements, is it?"

It works about as well as any of his plans ever has, which is to say, not well at all. Luke's anger turns on him, like that's where it wanted to be directed all along. "Is this what you came home for, Bo? To get tangled up in Hazzard County's regu-damn-lations? To get your dang self locked up every week just for being a Duke?"

Bo uses his chin to point toward the stairs that lead down to the cells. Enos gets the hint, which just goes to show the day's not entirely hopeless. Takes them down and locks them in before taking the cuffs off their wrists. Promises them they'll get their phone call after he's done collecting witness statements back at the bank, then makes his way up the stairs.

They hear the door to the squad room clunk shut before Luke turns on him again. More head shaking, lips pressed together and that look that exhibits no shame in calling Bo a complete idiot. "You came home for this," Luke says. "Could have gone anywhere you wanted, and you had to come back here. Ain't you happy now, Bo? Locked up while the county officials try to make sure you don't ever get out?" Luke storms across the cell, as if he could possibly get more than ten feet away. "You should have stayed with Diane."

If that isn't the most damning set of words that has ever come out of Luke's mouth.

* * *

Cold cement against his cheek, unaccountably reminds him of his aunt's chilled hands, testing him for fever. He was never sick when she did that, and he's not sick now. Just tired, defeated. Not angry anymore, and that's a shame, because that rage would be a useful thing right about now.

Bo's over there lying on the cot, opposite to where Luke sits on the icy floor. Down in the dust that never gets cleaned out of these old jails. Probably, if he could somehow analyze it, he'd find that the dirt in this corner is actually made up of microscopic lint from their own clothes, his and Bo's. They've spent enough time here.

He rubs at his forehead, eyes, and the back of his neck. Bo's aware of the movement, turns his head from where he's resting it on that old pillow to look at him. Seems unimpressed, because he goes back to staring at the ceiling like it's more interesting. Or maybe just more reasonable. He can't exactly blame the guy.

There's nothing quite so rational as the cool cement that surrounds them now. Walls that are meant to hold them, keep them from clearing themselves of trumped up charges. He's gotten rusty, didn't see the bank robbery for the set up it was. It's been a good year since Boss pulled this kind of a stunt, as though he's been waiting for Bo to come back to try it. Like there's no point in being corrupt if he can't frame not just one Duke boy, but two in the process.

What was it Jesse wanted him to do? Welcome Bo home? Good old J.D.'s done that better than Luke ever could.

Cooter was going to call Jesse, must have done that by now. The old man should already be here, on the other side of those bars and it's a toss up whether he'd be consoling them or giving a long and unarguable lecture about how they're fools. Must be something keeping the man away, most likely Boss.

There's no point in waiting for help. They've always done best when they helped themselves. The spare keys to the cells are over on the same hook in the corner that they've always hung on. Hazzard's law never has been known for its ability to learn lessons. Freedom's just two belt lengths and a little bit of luck away.

"Bo," he says, holding out his left hand while unhooking his own clasp with his right. "Let me have your belt."

His cousin turns to look at him again. "No," he says.

* * *

"No?" The look he gets for that is incredulous; Luke never has liked being denied.

As much as the way he's lying on the cot will allow, Bo shrugs his shoulders. "You heard me." His delivery is smooth, and he's somewhat surprised to discover that he fells genuinely tranquil about it.

Luke's on his feet now, and still pretty sure Bo's lost his mind. "Come on, Bo, the keys are right there. I just need your belt to hook it to mine so's—"

"I said no, Luke." He doesn't need the explanation to know why his belt is needed. It's a trick they've used before. Simple really, they could be free within five minutes. Sure, they'd have to find their way around Rosco and Enos once they got outside, but that's not a particularly serious problem either.

Luke's head is shaking, those lips are flat, and Bo is clearly an idiot. "It's the quickest way out, Bo." An idiot that Luke's had about enough of, it seems.

"I ain't in no hurry," he answers, feeling the peacefulness start to seep out of him. It hasn't been a good day; it's about to get a whole lot worse. "It ain't like I got nothing better to be doing." He's sitting up, that's not a good sign. Easier to project calm when he's not about to stand up and go chest to chest with his cousin.

"You ain't," and Luke's radar must be detecting how Bo's cool's about to blow, what with the way he's drifting closer. "Got no plans for the next ten years or so?" And that's an exaggeration. They haven't even been charged yet, they don't know how much money was stolen or whether a conviction would get them any more than the five years of probation time they're supposed to serve.

"I don't know, Luke, you tell me. I ain't good enough to do chores. You don't want me working next to you on the farm, hell, you ain't even interested in speaking civilly to me. Seems to me I got half a chance of finding someone that likes me better than that in prison." Yeah, that last sentence was a mistake, does nothing to improve Luke's assessment of his intelligence. Then again, he couldn't care less how stupid Luke wants to accuse him of being. "Seems to me you ain't got no real use for me. So you ain't got no real use for my belt, neither." Oh, he's on his feet now, one giant step for either of them and they'll be in that same, chest-to-chest, chin-tipped stance they took right before Bo decked Luke for suggesting that Diane was using him a year and a half ago.

Luke nods at that. "Fine," he says, and turns around. Dismisses Bo, just like that. "You're right, I don't need you."

* * *

It shouldn't surprise him, really, but it does. Knocks the breath right out of him, makes him stumble the few steps until Bo's got him pinned against the cinderblock wall, face first. "Dang it, Luke!" Followed by the complaint, and that's almost funny. Bo's the one that attacked a man whose back was turned, and he's got the gall to holler about it, probably because Luke's face is not in the right position for his fist to get at.

So he pushes against the wall, shoves Bo off him. Turns to face his cousin, presents a cheek for the hitting. Presents them both, because Jesse's always quoting that thing about turning the other cheek. Stands his ground when Bo comes at him again, chest puffed, chin up, muscles standing out on his neck, that vein there on his jawbone just pulsing.

"Come on, Luke, come on," he goads. "You ready to finish this thing? I been ready for eighteen months. You ready now?" Fist cocked back, and there's no question in Luke's mind that when it makes its way to its intended destination, it's going to smart.


	8. Ten Feet of Chilled Air

_**Author's Note: **Hey, y'all! Back on a regular schedule here, at least for a couple of weeks. When the holidays get closer, all bets are off._

_You all know the drill about what I do and do not own, who I do and do not mean harm to, and the fact that I most certainly do not earn anything. Plus how much I appreciate y'all reading and especially those who leave a review._

_And finally, all I have to say is: boys. Silly, stubborn boys._

* * *

**Chapter 8 – Ten Feet of Chilled Air**

Luke's standing there, chin up and ready. Doesn't have the grace to look even mildly concerned about what's coming at him.

"Come on, Luke," he goads, because his cousin knows, every bit as well as he does, the rules they were raised on. And he's got to know how hard it is for Bo to play by them right now, how he has to wait for Luke to make some move, just the curl of four fingers toward becoming a fist, a step forward, a tilt of his head that says _bring it on_. Can't hit a man that's not fighting back, even if he's been asking for it for three solid weeks.

His cousin doesn't move, gives no ground one way or another. "I ain't got no interest in fighting you, Bo." It's that low, measured tone, the one that indicates that whatever Bo's trying to do right now, he's not going to get a rise out of Luke.

"Why not?" is just childish, he can hear it in his tone, but it's too late now. It's a shame it has to come out this way, but the words have got to be said. "You was willing to hit me to keep me from going off with Diane in the first place, why not now?"

Luke's about to laugh at him, it's there in the curl of his lip. "You hit me first. You wasn't, as I recall," Luke reminds him, "in the least sorry about it, neither. Not before you did it nor after."

No, he wasn't. Not mostly, anyway. He had some second thoughts long about the time Luke hit him back and bloodied his nose, but he wasn't sorry for hitting his cousin's smug face, for the way he fell, for the thud he made when he hit the ground. He wasn't sorry when he got into the General and drove off, leaving Luke in his dust, wasn't sorry when he asked Diane for some money to make a down payment on Luke's half of the car. Going off into Diane's bedroom with her right after was a bonus, but didn't affect his lack of regrets with regard to Luke even a little bit.

He doesn't regret the way he pops Luke right now, either, even if it doesn't quite fit the rules they were raised on. A smirk isn't a swinging fist, but it hurts him just about as much, if in different ways.

"Bo!" Luke stumbles back, but not far. The hit wasn't hard enough for that, just enough to take that look of superiority off his cousin's face. Enough to draw a little blood, to make Luke spit. "Damn it!" To make him curse, but it lacks the vehemence of the way he said those words yesterday, or even an half an hour ago.

Bo wasn't lonely in those days when he and Luke were at odds, when he stormed off the farm despite the sadness in Jesse's eyes. There was Diane, and she was a breath of fresh air. To hear her tell it, he could fly if he wanted to. He was a natural, didn't need training, didn't need the General, hell, he didn't need Luke. It would be just the two of them and their love forever.

No, loneliness came about a week later, when Diane drove them down Old Mill Road for what he figured might just be the last time. When Luke hadn't bothered to show up to say goodbye, when Daisy had growled in his ear about how unfair it was and Jesse had made excuses for him. When he'd climbed up into that rig and waved out the window long after even the old, stone chimney was out of sight, then rolled up the glass and leaned against it. When Diane had started to talk about all the cheering crowds they'd see and all the money they'd make, then petered down to silence before lashing out at him for feeling sorry for himself when she was giving him the opportunity of a lifetime, he started to feel lonely. By the time she was ripping away at Luke, about how he was nothing more than a shadow for Bo to hide behind, and how he'd never be happy for Bo's successes, he was downright depressed. Somewhere after that he'd mostly shut down except on fair days, when the only real worry he had in the world was conquering a pile of junked cars.

And if being that kind of lonely wasn't exactly fine, it wasn't so awful. It wasn't like he'd enjoyed it, but he lived with it. Seemed pretty miserable at the time, but now he knows better. Because being lonely while Luke was in a different county, most of the time a different state, even, made sense. The kind of lonely he's been the past three weeks, while Luke's mostly been close enough to touch him, but hasn't, not if he doesn't have to, that's the real definition of miserable.

He's still over there, wiping blood and spit onto his own sleeve, glowering at Bo. "I was gonna say," he comments between wipes. "Not to hit me first this time, because I ain't gonna hit you back."

And there's nothing to do about that except take another shot at his cousin, the man who doesn't even think enough of him to hit back.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Luke." Oh, but he's not, not even slightly sorry. The tone is accusatory, the kind of sound that means the only one Bo's sorry for is himself. "You was right." Bo doesn't mean that, either. It's the kind of concession that comes with a clause, the kind that says Luke has to apologize back and admit he was at fault, too. "I shouldn't have gone off with Diane. What else do you want me to say?"

That last part, the question right there, might be the only piece of the little speech that's genuine. _Tell me what to say, Luke, to make you stop being mad at me._ It's an old refrain, dating back to their earliest squabbles over who got to sit next to Jesse on the tractor. For all his noise and bluster, Bo never has been able to tolerate Luke's anger.

But to Luke that anger's been the one thing he could hold onto for the last year and a half. Solid, hard, shattered right out of the center of what was once his life. Sharp edges, the kind of thing that can slice a man to ribbons if he gets too close. Best for Luke to stay right in the middle where he's been all along, while Bo keeps away all together.

The split in his lip throbs with each beat of his heart. Nothing serious, really, the teeth behind it are neither chipped nor loose. It wasn't a hard hit, nothing more than begging for a bloodied nose in response. Bo trying to make them even, somehow, when their balance has been tipped for so long that neither of them has a clue how to get it level again.

That apology hangs in the cell between them, waiting to be accepted or rejected. Luke's got no real opinion on it one way or the other, what with how it wasn't anything more than Bo throwing up his hands. _I give up, Luke. You're more obstinate than I am. So I'm sorry, all right? _Luke knows the tactic well. He's used it plenty while Jesse stood over them insisting they shake hands.

Bo's waiting, though, hands on hips and chin jutted out, for a response. _What else do you want me to say?_ Luke's got no answers for him.

* * *

Might have been wisest, in retrospect, just to have handed Luke his belt in the first place. The jail is a tight hole for two caged animals; they can't get more than a few feet apart from one another. Out there, at least, there's a whole wide world of space in which Luke's animosity can bloom. Best, maybe, for all that hate not to be concentrated into this one square of concrete.

Hate – that's not the right word, no matter how easily it comes into his mind. Luke doesn't hate him, not like he hated Diane. Hated her enough to hit Bo over her, to go all the way to Cedar City to find evidence against her. But even that wasn't exactly hate so much as distrust.

Luke always suspected Diane had a hidden agenda of some kind, and he was all wrong about that. There was nothing about the woman that was hidden. Oh, she charmed a man, but it was all done right out in the open, with flattery and kisses. She's the only person Bo has ever known that ever dared to point out, right to Luke's face, how he was acting like Bo was an overgrown kid that needed babysitting. Might not have been nice (or even very smart, considering how little Luke Duke liked being dismissed that way) but she wasn't sneaky.

Didn't matter, Luke didn't trust her, or maybe it was the whole carnival. Could be it didn't surprise his cousin a bit when the culprit turned out to be Carl and not Diane. Probably didn't much matter to him, honestly. There had been danger, and he managed to save Bo from it. That was likely the only thing that registered with him.

Those hands on his hips are starting to feel silly there, just as pointless as the way his eyes are boring into Luke's, looking for answers that he's clearly not about to get. He takes a deep breath, lets it out, but he's not ready to give up his vigil, not yet.

Days and days of fighting, over the General, over Diane, over whose side of the dispute Daisy, Jesse and Cooter would take, and the whole time, Bo had been sure it was about how Luke didn't trust him. Didn't think he was grown up enough to make his own decisions, wasn't a good enough driver to make a jump with their shared car. But it wasn't ever about that, he realizes. In the end it was about how Luke loved him enough to protect him, even when Bo resisted all his efforts. It was about how Luke would do anything to make sure he didn't get hurt, even if what he did made Bo yell at him, hurt him, walk away from him, leave him behind.

Bo, Luke, Daisy, Jesse, they've all lost so much family that they can't afford to give even one more up. But Luke was willing to let him go, so long as he went safely, carefully, with his eyes open wide to the dangers around him.

And maybe, just maybe, letting Bo go caused Luke more pain than he's been willing to admit, even to himself.

Bo's stomach turns on him, a miserable, sour feeling. He sits down, but he's not going to be sick, not in the traditional sense. His gut's just the first part of him to acknowledge what he's feeling right now. Elbows on his knees, face in his hands, Bo Duke is ashamed of himself, right down to his core.

* * *

Bo's over there, ignoring him right back. It's a relief, really. At least that's what he keeps telling himself, and it would be true if what Bo's doing could actually put down to a snub.

Luke makes his way back into his corner, sits on the unforgiving concrete there, leans the sore side of his face against the wall. Watches Bo as he sulks. Maybe it's pouting that he's doing. Whatever it is, it's blessedly a lot quieter than the invitations to fight were.

Maybe it's resignation. Realizing, as Luke had to do about a year ago, that the past is gone, hovering on the other side of some kind of invisible barrier that they can't even find, much less cross. It got lost in phone calls that Luke was conveniently too busy to take part in, letters he never wrote nor received. He might have thought it was carefully sealed under the tarp that hid the General, but once Bo went and dug the car out, it turned out not to be there, either.

He crosses his arms over his chest. Seems like they've been forgotten in here. Cooter's promises of calling Jesse appear to be just as thin as Enos' assurances that they'll get their phone call as soon as he's done questioning the witnesses. It's just him and Bo and about ten feet of chilled air.

"Bo," he says, with no idea what's supposed to follow the word.

Doesn't matter. His cousin looks up from where he's been holding his head, and the look is miserable. Not self-pitying, not angry, not hurt. Miserable.

"I'm sorry, Luke," he says, and means it.

Well. What's he supposed to do with that?


	9. Too Old for Silly Children’s Games

**Chapter 9 – Too Old for Silly Children's Games**

It's unforgivable. Not the part where he hurt Luke, exactly. More like the part where he never figured it was possible.

All his life, Luke's been bigger than him, even after Bo gained those inches that let him see the top of his cousin's head. Stronger, or maybe just better able to use his body to his advantage than Bo has ever been. Since he was a little kid, Luke's been tough, powerful, beyond pain. The kind of person that nothing can hurt.

Except none of that has ever, really, been true. Luke feels pain; Bo can remember a few fights that he limped away from, black, blue and bloodied. It's just that Luke bears what hurts him with the same exact kind of stoicism as he tolerates fun. Smiles are rare, tears are nearly nonexistent, but just because Luke doesn't show his emotions, pretends they are nothing more than flesh wounds that will heal best if left alone, doesn't mean they don't gape there, just below that well-constructed façade.

And if anyone should have known better about that, it's Bo.

"I shouldn't have left," he admits.

"You're dang right you shouldn't have." And Luke's not going to make it – any of whatever's going to happen – easy. "Uncle Jesse ain't getting no younger, you know. He ain't got no reason to be out in them fields picking up your slack."

And that's not fair, he—"I done sent you plenty of money to hire hands, Luke. It ain't my fault if you didn't like none of them." He's got no guilt as concerns the way he treated their uncle. "Besides, he done give me his blessing to go out on the carnival circuit." He feels his face getting warm as anger starts to come back to him like an old and welcome friend.

Luke's over there shaking his head at the foolishness of cousins who think they know what they're talking about. "What else was he supposed to do, Bo? He ain't never gonna tell you that you got to stay." His voice isn't exactly raised, but it's contentious, the kind of thing that always makes Bo yell back at him, exactly like it's about to right now.

"Our Uncle Jesse ain't no kid, Luke, you done said it yourself. If he's got something to say to me, he can dang well say it. He ain't no liar, neither," which doesn't even need to be said, but Bo's on a roll. "Besides, this ain't about him." And that's the truth.

"No, it ain't," Luke agrees. "It's about how you ain't got the brains of a turnip! Following a girl off with some half-baked carnival. You ever bother to figure out that them things ain't halfway safe, Bo? Setting up then tearing down, and moving on to set up someplace else the next week. Ain't no time for safety precautions in that schedule, or ain't you ever noticed?" It's a brilliant display of the way Luke's intelligence works, playing out in full technicolor glory for his brain all the worst case scenarios.

"This ain't about Diane, nor the carnival, neither," Bo insists. Because it's also a brilliant display of Luke confusing the issue.

"You're dang right it's not. It's about you. Never thinking of no one but yourself. What if something had happened to you?" Luke's face is red now; he's not coming out of his corner, still not willing to fight, but he's blustering up a storm over there. "Let's just say you broke your fool neck. You think that carnival had insurance, Bo? Diane was operating on whatever money she could carry in her jeans pocket. She ain't had no insurance and neither do you. How was your medical bills getting paid?" More headshaking over there, more faces that express incredulity at the stupidity of one Bo Duke. "Was it worth Uncle Jesse having to lose the farm for you to go running off with some girl?"

"It ain't about Diane," he reiterates for the man who keeps wanting to go back to hating her. "And it ain't even about me. I wasn't going to get hurt, and you know it." Or he doesn't -- doom-and-gloom over there's always figuring a tree's going to jump right out in front of them and get them killed -- but he should. Because when it comes to jumping cars, Bo Duke never misses. It's just driving straight down the road that can get him into trouble. "It's about you! I let a girl get between us, went off with her and left you behind. I ain't never done that before, and I shouldn't have done it this time, neither."

Well. Just listen to that all that silence coming from over there in Luke's corner.

* * *

"Boys?" The cavalry has arrived. It doesn't so much gallop into the County Building as waddle, replacing a rebel yell with a tentative, "Boys?"

"Down here, Uncle Jesse," he calls, because Bo is uncharacteristically silent and their uncle is oddly illogical in his search methods. They haven't been locked into an upstairs cell in years, not since Rosco declared him and Bo to be the kind of disruptive presence he doesn't want in his squad room. He can hardly blame the sheriff for that decision; the two of them always managed to have a good time up there, getting themselves involved in every bit of business the county tried to transact. Distracting Enos was easy, all they had to do was speak of Daisy's plans to go for a swim in Hazzard Pond (someday, they never specified when), and the deputy would get red and twitchy. Rosco always put up more of a struggle, but if they hassled him enough about how many cruisers he'd left in the pond last week, eventually he'd get to sputtering in a most entertaining way. And heavens forbid a young lady had any business to conduct in the courthouse on a day when the Duke boys were locked up. She'd be glued to the bars opposite Bo while Rosco and Boss tried their dangedest to get her to state her purpose and leave. Apparently it had been too much fun for the entire county when the Duke boys got incarcerated upstairs.

Today looks to be anything but fun, what with how Jesse assesses them when he comes down the stairs. "You boys all right?" he asks, eyeballing the way they're in separate corners.

"Fine," Luke answers, gets a nod in response, but Jesse's focused on Bo. Probably looking for bruises on his pale skin, evidence that the two of them have finally taken to beating on each other.

Or maybe he's looking for more subtle signs, about how Bo's heart's all broken to bits over his lost girl. He reckons Bo could well take this opportunity to explain how Luke's lost his cool twice in as many days, screamed at him, at Rosco, kicked out the window of the General Lee.

"We're fine," Bo agrees, and that shouldn't be surprise it wants to be. Of course Bo's not going to go telling their uncle anything of consequence about Luke's behavior; he never has, even when he was young enough that it would have been excusable.

All the same, the old man doesn't believe it for a minute. He digs the chair out from behind the desk that no officer has bothered to use since the days when Rosco had himself a posse of deputies. Drags it around to where he can sit and watch how both of his boys stay rooted to their respective corners. If he wants them to come closer to the bars, he might need to offer them peanuts, like he did for the elephants in the days when the circus train came to town.

"You boys want to know what you're in here for?" It's tentative, careful, like he's not sure what will make the elephants go bullheaded and start charging at each other, or maybe the bars.

"Bank robbery," Bo says with a shrug, like it really means that little to him. As if it's all just about yawn-worthy, to have the threat of prison looming over them again.

Jesse's not impressed with Bo's answer. "Armed robbery," he corrects. "Boss claims he was assaulted, too. They was just closing down for lunch. Edna Mae was already gone, and Boss was the only one there. Claims you two came in wearing ski masks and carrying a pistol apiece, and ordered him to open the vault. When he didn't move fast enough, he says Bo hit him over the head with his gun."

The muscles in Luke's jaw twinge, he must be grinding his teeth together again.

"What?" Bo says, just this side of laughing. Accused of assault with a deadly weapon, and the idiot thinks it's funny.

Jesse shrugs. "That's what he says."

"And conveniently, there ain't no witnesses," Luke spits out. "Not on the inside, anyways. Cooter can attest to where we was at the time of the crime."

"Sure he can!" Bo agrees, like the problem's solved, but Luke knows what's coming next before it even comes out of Jesse's mouth.

"Sure he can," Jesse agrees in that high-pitched tone that mocks the very notion. "But he ain't gonna get the chance. J.D. done told him to tell it to the judge." Which means Cooter's input as a witness is going to be ignored until they get around to summoning Judge Druten out of Chickasaw or Hatchapee or could be Sweetwater; whichever county he's serving in right now. It'll be a good two days before he responds to a request to hear a case in Hazzard, and that's a hopeful estimate.

"So he wants us in here for a couple of days," Luke assesses. "He made it armed robbery so he could set the bail too high for us to get out. Or to make you take out a loan against the mortgage."

"Don't do it, Uncle Jesse," Bo interrupts. "We's just fine in here." And Luke nods to second the motion.

"The assault, though, what's his angle on that one?" Luke muses, ticking off ideas in his head, but none of them are any good. The man doesn't need anything heavier than armed robbery to keep them out of the way while he carries out whatever his larger scheme might be.

Jesse shakes his head. "I don't know, but he was just out there showing off a pretty good-sized bump on his noggin." Points at the top of his own head, in case they can't figure out for themselves what a noggin is.

"Probably got it from Lulu," Bo says with a laugh. Not much sound to it, just a quiet little chuckle. Nothing that should make any kind of a difference in anything at all, and yet somehow it's made this chilled space a little bit warmer.

"Rolled out of bed," Luke suggests, and gets rewarded by a slightly more robust laugh.

"She pushed him," Bo ups the ante, then giggles at his own idea.

"Left a dent in the floor where he landed," Luke snorts. It's really not all that funny, hardly worth saying at all, but Bo's appreciation for it rings out through the basement.

"Broke the—"

Jesse's throat clears, and a hundred childhood moments come rushing forward from where they've been stored away in places where he figured he'd never see them again. Times at the dinner table when he and Bo double-teamed Daisy, trying to get her to laugh at the right second so milk would come out of her nose, rambunctious moments in church, and displays of blatant disrespect for elders. Jesse's throat would clear, they'd compose themselves nicely for him, cast their eyes down in some attempt at conveying remorse, then smirk at each other the minute the old man's back got turned.

They skip all of that now; they're too old for silly children's games.

"What are your plans?" Jesse asks, because it's safe in this space where there are just the three of them. If any of the Hazzard law had returned to the building, they'd know it. Don't a one of them walk on anything close to kitten paws.

Luke shrugs. "I'll let you know when we make one." He could ask Jesse to stroll over there and hand them the keys right now. It might, if he worked at it hard enough, made a really convincing case for why their uncle ought to do it, even work. But there's no point, not when he doesn't know where Bo stands on the subject breaking out.

"All right," the old man answers. Doesn't look confused or put out. Could be he expects that answer; he always claims he knows everything before it even gets said. "You know where to find me if you need me." Their uncle gets up and puts the chair back where he found it. Of course he does; Dukes are nothing if not courteous, tidy folk. It's one of the least interesting reputations they've got. "You boys… be careful."

"We will," is Bo's response, probably automatic. Luke just about came out with the same words.

"And look out for each other." Stern blue eyes meet his, then scoot over to his other nephew. Yeah, well. He doesn't exactly have a choice in the matter. Bo's back in Hazzard now, under the thumb of J.D. Hogg. Whatever comes, they're in it together.

* * *

Haven't neither of them moved since Jesse walked out of here. Really, their window of opportunity has got to be closing; they can't expect the law to stay away all afternoon. Boss and Rosco must be making a pretty good show of being victims up there, probably leading tours of The Vault Where It All Happened. And convincing those townsfolk who saw the Dukes take off after the real bad guys that it was all part of a clever plan orchestrated by one Luke Duke.

Who is currently engaged in a deep study of his thumbnails. Sitting in the corner with his knees up like the little boy Bo hardly remembers him ever being. Hands curled into loose fists, and no part of him is moving. He'll never ask for Bo's help now, not after he's been rejected.

Luke never has been any good at vulnerability. He'll get quiet and menace or go loud and holler, maybe even hit someone. Admitting something has hurt him, well he'd probably rather let Bo pull his arm right off his shoulder than have him start picking at that teflon veneer he likes to hide behind.

So Bo huffs, takes a couple of tries before he manages his goal, which is to blow the hair up off his forehead and out of his eyes. Temporary solution, just like everything else in his life; his bangs fall back into their own natural pattern. "You ready to get out of here?" he asks.

Luke's eyes don't move from where they're focused, but his left hand reaches toward Bo when he hears the jingle of a belt buckle being unhooked.

* * *

Bo is behind him, close and hot. Breathing, there's so little space between them that Luke can hear every time Bo sucks in a hopeful gulp of air, then feel the disappointed release when the belts miss the keys.

"Come on, Luke," he encourages.

If there has ever been a project that doesn't take two, it's lobbing the far end of a pair of interlinked belts at a set of keys on the wall.

"A little further," is Bo's helpful suggestion the next time the keys stay hanging on the wall despite Luke's better efforts.

He glares over his shoulder at Bo – a wiser man would back off, but old cheerful back there just smiles at him. "It's this damn flimsy belt you got here that's the problem." Anyone could see that, what with how Bo's belt is cheaply made, probably something he bought in some chain department store on the side of an interstate. "Too thin."

"You're just jealous because I got a smaller waist than you do," gets giggled back at him. Only Bo. Luke decides not to elbow him away right at this particular moment, instead he keeps the grip on the one end of the belt with his right hand, and tosses the other with his left. They really need to talk to Rosco about moving the key hooks to the other side of the basement so he can do this right-handed in the future. "So close," Bo comments, sucking on his teeth. There's an uninvited hand in the middle of Luke's back, heat and pressure. Like it can somehow provide support, when he's not even sure he wants to be touched at all. "One more time." As if he's going to give up now. Another toss. "You got 'em, Luke!" He's got nothing of the sort, he's gotten a buckle hung up on the hook.

"Bo!" he snaps, his frustration seething over into just that syllable. Not that the man notices or takes it for what it is. He just fits himself in closer, reaching his left arm out to parallel Luke's – longer reach, and their hands are practically holding onto the same three inch span of leather.

"Let me," gets breathed into Luke's ear. He'd like to, he'd step right out of the way and let Bo take it over from him if he could, but he's boxed into the corner by his cousin. He's got no choice but to let go of the belt and stand there, tolerating the close quarters while Bo fights the same stupid battle Luke was only a second ago. "Huh-ha!" practically bursting his eardrum, announces that Bo thinks he's making progress. And maybe he is – the keys have just jingled over there.

The unfortunate part of the sound is that it's gotten Bo all excited. Now he's jerking on the belt in ways that are likely to free it from the hook, but leave the keys still hanging there. "Not like that," Luke counsels, putting his own left hand back approximately where it was before Bo got a little too grabby. "Like this."

Between them, and it cannot be attributed to anything like skill so it must be luck, they manage to tug and pull until the keys are just about to fall off the hook.

"Now what?" Bo asks, because even he can see that impulsivity isn't the best approach to this task, might admit that finesse is the better way to go. If the keys drop straight to the floor, they'll be out of reach. They need to get flipped off the hook, and with any luck they'll skid toward the cell and not away.

"Up and toward us, like a whip," Luke says. "One, two, three."

The keys clatter to the floor, not as close as Luke would have liked to see them fall.

"Let me free, Bo." There's hesitation behind him, like his cousin's not sure moving is the best idea. "You need me out of the way so's you can get your arm out there. Ain't no way I can reach them keys." Now that he's got a good reason, Bo backs off and lets Luke get out of his way. All the same, Luke's not particularly confident it'll matter. Bo's arm may not be long enough either.

From the first few tries it looks like their efforts have been in vain. There are a good three more inches between Bo's middle finger and the ring. "Bo," he interrupts, "the belts." They may not be rigid, but maybe he can find a way to use them to drag that ring closer.

"No," Bo says, adjusting the way he's squatting there. Turns his head to the side, mashing cheek against metal, and just about slides his shoulder through the bars. Long about the time Luke's going to stop him for fear he'll dislocate some important body part, there's a clink followed by a giggle. Bo's got them. Jingle-jangle across the floor until he can pick them up. A toss into the air and then he catches them in that same hand before handing them over to Luke.

He just sighs at the show off. "Let's go, Bo."


	10. Rusty

_**Author's Note:** You may recall that somewhere back there I put forth the idea that if Bo Duke actually left Hazzard for eighteen months, it would affect more than just the Duke family. That idea has sort of been touched on in previous chapters, but this here is the one where it really gets explored. So yeah, this doesn't fit with canon, but then it can't really. And Hazzard isn't actually any worse for the wear that going without Bo Duke has put on it. _

_Also, here come the holidays, and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post next Monday or not. Plus, this was written as an eleven chapter story, but that last chapter is so long that I might split it in two. So, to sum up, could be late, could be one more post or two._

_Thanks to all for reading this one, and for sticking with me through so very many different kinds of stories (as well as through my various and silly author's notes). And, of course, to all the reviewers that make it worthwhile._

_Don't own the Dukes or Hazzard (only the changes that my plotlines wind up making to both) and don't mean any harm to those that do._

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**Chapter 10 -- Rusty**

Freedom is only half the battle. They've been left alone long enough to get out from unwanted walls, but it's not going to do them a bit of good to be escaped prisoners unless they can also be cleared of all charges. And sneaking around in the bushes in front of the county building is no way to track down potential leads.

"We need a car," he informs Luke, who gives him that flat glare he saves for moments when he thinks Bo's brain's gone on hiatus. "Not the General." _No kidding, genius_, flashes across Luke's face louder than if he'd yelled it straight into Bo's ear.

Fortunately, his too-smart cousin's not particularly interested in putting any serious concentration into Bo's brilliance at the moment. He's nudging them forward, toward the northeast corner of the building, where the shrubbery is thin, but the crowd noise is the loudest.

"There," Luke says, pointing to his own ugly, green wheels, parked on the curb behind the sheriff's cruiser. Bo spares it a moment's look, but no more.

"What's he doing?" he whispers at Luke, tries to choke down a laugh, but doesn't entirely succeed. His cousin's not quite sure, either, if that shaking head is any indication.

Boss has himself a fine crowd, maybe half of the passersby have stopped in a semi-circle at the bottom of the bank steps, listening to the bald man give a truly moving speech. One so heartfelt that he has to wipe a tear from his left eye, while his right hand holds his white hat over his heart. Rosco stands at his left side, occasionally patting the man's closest shoulder and enduring a scowl every time.

"Giving a eulogy for the money," is Luke's best guess. "Don't matter none," he adds, disrupting Bo's amusement and glee at seeing Boss in full form for the first time in eighteen months. The man always gives an amazing, if bizarre, performance. "So long as he keeps at it long enough for us to get out of here."

Bo nods in agreement that it's time to get while the getting's good. Grabs Luke's arm before he makes that mad dash across the open lawn. Stiff in his hands, doesn't have even the slightest bit of give, but Luke looks back at him. "Let me drive?" Doesn't know why it matters, it's not like his cousin isn't a fine driver. Just feels right to be sitting there with a steering wheel in front of him, and annoying instructions coming into his right ear.

"Suit yourself," Luke says with a shrug. "But if them keys ain't still in there, you best be quick about the hotwiring." Yeah well, they'll cross that bridge when they come to it. For now he's following Luke's strange attempt at tiptoeing across the carefully manicured grass. Not even close to the full-out sprint Bo would have chosen, but it seems to work all right, two grown men, sneaking around in the wide open. They get to the car and slide in real easy, closing the doors with near-silent clicks. Bo grins and jingles the keys hanging from the ignition before starting the car.

The General would laugh at the sound of this car. Doesn't hold a candle to the aggressive snarl of a stock car, it's got kind of an off-key hum, like a tone-deaf brat singing a tuneless song. Nothing to get excited about, but glancing into his rear mirror Bo sees a rush of movement all the same. Boss is pointing to where they're sitting in Luke's car while Rosco and Enos start to close the distance on foot.

"Bo!" gets griped at him. "What're you waiting for? Go!"

"Just trying to give them a fair chance," he answers, his most disarming grin aimed at Luke. His sportsmanship is not appreciated, as his cousin simply points forward. _Now, Bo._

It's less honorable this way, taking advantage of the enemy's weakness, but it's what Luke wants, so Bo does it. Skates the car three-quarters of the way around the square, and up Route 81 before the sirens manage to get going behind them.

"What now?" he asks.

Their Aunt Lavinia used to tell Luke he shouldn't contort his face the way he's got it twisted right now, or it might just get stuck that way. "Lose them," is the annoyed command.

"Shoot Luke, I already got that part just about done," and he does. Not a quarter mile up, the road splits, and he can fork left or right. Which is why he just keeps on going straight before slamming on the brakes. It's not a truly graceful move, but then it's not his fault that Luke's apparently got all original equipment in this car, hasn't modified it in a single useful way. Still works, even the Swinger's brakes leave them a little closer to that big old maple tree than he'd like. They're firmly ensconced in the brush between the diverging roads when he cuts the engine so they can hear the sirens pass by, one to the left of them and one to the right. The Hazzard law has split up and they're still both managing to go the wrong way. Bo restarts the car, reverses it out of the brambles, pulls a one-eighty and heads back toward town. "What _now_?" he asks again.

Luke shrugs over there in the passenger seat, slouching into the far corner in a posture Bo hasn't seen in a long, long time. A relaxing sight.

"Go on out 36," Luke suggests. "And look for a blue sedan."

* * *

"They done left the county already, Luke," is Bo telling him things he already knows. Blonde logic; comfortable like old jeans, and just as full of holes.

"They'll be back, if they ain't already. Boss ain't letting them take that money out of the county for keeps." Seems reasonable, and he can only hope it's true. "Just go out that way, and then we'll start looking around."

Of course, they can't go back through town to get to Route 36, so Bo starts winding through interconnecting old dirt roads that only moonshiners and revenuers know. His cousin must be feeling nostalgic, the way he's taking each turn like there's a cop in the rearview, when anyone with eyes can see they've got this corner of the county all to themselves.

Somewhere in the middle of spraying gravel for about ten feet in all directions, Bo says, "This thing ain't half bad, Luke. She's got some moves. She got a name?"

Air snorts out of his nose without halfway consulting his brain for permission. "It ain't even got a gender, Bo. It's just a car." And he only bothered with it because he got tired of taking Daisy to work so he could have her Jeep, which was actually less painful than asking Jesse to borrow the pickup and getting reminded that he had a perfectly good car he could be driving if he wanted to. Didn't want to hear another word about the General, so he got Cooter to help him poke around the junkyard to find something that wouldn't take too much money to get running. Wound up paying for it from some two-bit trucking job he got himself hired to, trekking eggs to Capitol City, because he wasn't going to use a dime of Bo's money for anything personal.

Bo's shaking his head over there. "That's sad, Luke." He means it, too, but Luke's got nothing to say about any emotions tied to any vehicles whatsoever. "I think it's a she." Of course he does. Since about the age of thirteen, Bo's brain's reckoned that just about everything's female.

It's blissfully quiet until they hit the end of their back road, and Route 36 is there in front of them, demanding a choice of left or right.

"Which way?"

Good question; Luke's got no idea. Left will take them to the county line and right leads back toward Hazzard. Neither is exactly promising. He shrugs his answer.

Given no particular direction, Bo lets the car idle and watches out the windshield for a sign of what to do. "You're getting rusty," is his brilliant assessment.

Luke nods; he's been thinking the same thing. "I let Rosco catch us." That's embarrassing. "Didn't even try to run."

"I kept waiting for you to give the signal." Yeah, Bo would have, and it wouldn't have been laziness that made him do it, either. It was survival, once upon a time, to try to keep his cousin's impetuosity under control. To have agreed upon gestures that they used, or else Bo would take off running at the first opportunity, without any clear direction in mind. Always had to force the kid to hold up long enough to make a firm plan for what to do once they got moving. "You never did. I reckon Rosco's out of practice, too, the way he left us down there so long without no supervision."

"Maybe he wanted to let us go," but Luke doesn't believe his own words. The assault charge and the armed robbery both speak to a desire to keep the Duke boys locked up long enough to make sure that whatever Boss's plans are, they get a chance to play themselves out unmolested. "Go left," he finally instructs.

With casual ease, Bo gets them out on the main road, but there are only a few miles to go before they hit the county line. No problem; right before they get there, Luke signals for Bo to turn onto Old Mine Road, a dirt trail to nowhere in particular.

"Where are we going?" he gets asked.

"If you was supposed to disappear for a couple days without leaving the county, where would you go?" he asks. Probably not a fair question for a man that hasn't lived here in a year and a half.

"A still site," is the natural response, but Luke shakes his head. These aren't moonshiners, they're stooges posing as bank robbers. "The caves, the old mill, some barn or something…" his cousin rattles off.

Luke cuts him off with a wave of his hand. Seems like his memory's just fine. "So we start checking them places out." He reaches for the CB handset, but Bo catches his wrist before he gets there. It's nothing Luke wants, being held back like this. "What?" he growls.

"I was thinking maybe we could handle this one on our own. Like old times."

Old times. Luke has to wonder what, exactly, Bo thinks he's remembering fondly. Totaling Sweet Tilly and getting themselves caught with enough moonshine to put them in prison for ten years, maybe? Or could be he thinks it was fun to run Daisy's car off of Kissing Cliff. Probably has happy memories of traipsing around vacant parts of the county naked while their kin threw a wake because the whole county thought they were dead. And in all of those events, they had family and friends there helping them. Bo's memory is more than sepia-tinged – it's faulty. But, "It's your neck."

"Luke," and he doesn't like the sound of that _Luke_. It's a tentative kind of thing that's about to tiptoe around asking him things he doesn't want to talk about. "What was it like when I was gone?"

There's no real good answer to that. Bo probably wants to hear about how life stopped after he left Hazzard County, but that's clearly not true. Or maybe he's after learning how much all the girls missed him, how they mourned the loss of one of the Duke boys, but Luke can't help him out much there, either. Sure, a few of them asked after him, but not beyond that first month or so, not after Luke made clear he had no inside scoop on how his cousin was doing out there. Then again, it might be that he wants to hear how the farm fell apart without him, how Jesse wept and Daisy wilted and Luke (_missed him so much he quit going to the Boar's Nest, stopped prowling the county and stuck to the bare essentials of running a farm_) waited impatiently for him to come back.

"Same as ever, I reckon," he answers, and if it's not entirely true, there's no one can say it's exactly false, either. "Enos got a hankering to become a big city cop, but weren't no one interested in him. Didn't none of them consider working the Hazzard streets to be good enough experience, I guess." Bo's over there listening attentively; seems that discussion of the local law is neutral enough territory for this conversation. "Rosco wanted a dog, but Boss told him he could only have one or the other: a dog or Enos. He thought about it for long enough that if I was Enos I'd be insulted."

Bo laughs at that. "Enos don't know how to be insulted, else he'd be insulted that Daisy's head ain't turned in his direction yet after all these years."

"Anyways – go left here, there's the old Potter place out at the end we can check out – as you can see, Enos is still here and Rosco ain't got no dog." Hard to imagine Rosco knowing how to handle a dog if he had one. Just like Boss, the beast would probably rule the roost, giving the sheriff no respect in return for the love it would receive.

Bo pulls a hundred-eighty degree turn when they hit the far end of the dirt road. The old Potter place has seen better days; looks like what was left of the house collapsed in a fine, windy thunderstorm sometime over the years since they've last been out this way. "What about you?" Luke's got no interest in answering that. "What kind of schemes did Boss pull to get you locked up?"

He rubs at the back of his head and thinks back. "Not too many, really. Try the old warehouse."

"Don't change the subject, Luke," Bo warns him, but finds the entrance to that old River Road that leads west toward the structure in question.

"No," he informs his cousin. "It's true, Boss left me alone after them first few months." He never thought real hard about it at the time; he had other worries with the harvest, then hunting up enough game to get them through winter. "But he did get me involved in some kind of a boxing match."

"Boxing?" Bo laughs, as though it was any fun at all. "Bet you kicked the other guy's tail."

"Not 'til after he kicked mine, first." Leave it to Bo to think fighting is a game and not the potentially deadly activity it really is. "I didn't want to fight him."

"How come you did, then?" The warehouse looms, and Bo finds himself a place to stash the car. Close enough they can get back to it on the run if they need to, but well enough hidden that it won't get stumbled onto by the wrong people. Like one Rosco P. Coltrane.

"To save the farm," he answers simply. "In all them years Boss threatened us, I ain't never took it too serious. But that time – I don't know, I looked around the fields, the house, the livestock," the trees out front that him and Bo used to climb, the fence they'd built just that summer, the clearing where the outhouse stood before Bo blew it to bits, "and I figured it was worth fighting for, I guess." He opens the door and has to push back the branches of the bush Bo has parked the car in, the nearest ones want to climb into the car in his place. "Mostly the time you was gone was boring," he concludes before fighting his way out the car door.

* * *

Boring. Seems like that little trend Luke's describing has come to an abrupt end now that he's back. Maybe. Could be that Cooter's got a point when he says that Luke doesn't know how to have fun anymore.

Or, and this is the most likely possibility, Luke will never admit to having missed Bo. Probably _it was boring_ is as close as he's going to get.

The sun's hanging low, getting in his eyes every time he tries to get a look at the structure in front of them. "Boring?" he asks, turning to see Luke squinting every bit as hard as he is.

"Yeah, Bo, boring," Luke confirms, annoyed at having to repeat himself. Or maybe it's the sun that's bothering him, or it could just be that having to make a backhand admission of missing Bo is more than Luke wants to do. "Let's wait a minute until we can see," is the suggestion. Luke's going to blame it on the sun, anyway.

He comes around to the driver's side of the car and leans on the rear quarter panel. It's not much of a gesture to stand within five feet of where Bo's leaning on the driver's side door, but it's quite possibly the closest Luke has legitimately chosen to get to him since that cold day he walked into the farmyard.

They stand there until the shadows bleed those last feet across the empty ground between them and the old warehouse, an uninteresting old wooden structure with a concrete foundation. There's still the hint of the yellow script that used to cover the side of the building before it mostly faded away. _Cirulli's_, it once said, and a younger version of Luke would make a show of how he could read cursive writing any time Uncle Jesse or Aunt Lavinia drove the Duke kids by it. _Cirulli's, _which Luke could read, but when Bo asked him what it meant he got surly. Never did like not knowing the answer to even the most pointless question.

The building's about two stories high, though as Bo seems to recall, it's wide open inside, other than structural beams. Once upon a time it stored lumber, and before that, Jesse claims it held tobacco. It was never really viable in Bo's memory, and the Cirulli family apparently left Hazzard before the youngest Duke cousin started school. Bo hasn't been inside since he was too young to know better about wandering around abandoned buildings (or maybe since Luke was, must've been his cousin that headed the expedition), but it seems to his memory like there was never anything much to the place, anyway. Just enough height that soon the shadow it casts will cover the whole of what was once a grassy parking lot that's in front of it.

"Come on," Luke says, when the sun's low enough to suit him. Pushes himself off the car, but Bo reaches out a long arm and grabs his wrist before it can get out of reach. He gets a scathing look for it, but the words are already on his tongue so he says them anyway, doesn't let the annoyance in those blue eyes stop him.

"The carnival circuit was boring too, Luke." Hopes his cousin still understands code talk, and hears _I missed you_ under what really gets said.

Luke nods, quick, sharp gesture, then, "Come on," gets said again.

* * *

Well, no one ever _has_ accused Bo of being the smart one. A year and a half, and his assessment is that the carnival was boring. Shoot, Luke would have figured that out in a week. (How long his pride would have kept him from admitting it – well maybe a year and a half is actually a pretty quick turnaround after all.) Boring, but free, the circuit must have been. Though his cousin, not being the smart one, doesn't seem to have minded today's confinement a whole heck of a lot. Somehow, this is all just an adventure to Bo.

"Shh," he warns, though his cousin hasn't said anything since they left the car. There's no particular reason to assume that danger lurks of the nature they need to hold their silence against, nothing physically out of place, no cars but their own, no lights or other indications. Still, there's a tight rigidity to the way Bo's holding himself, like a fawn whose ears are swiveling to locate the crack of a twig. It's habit to trust that look on his face, the way it means his cousin doesn't like the feel of the place.

When they get close enough, Luke reckons they'll benefit from a perimeter scan. If there's a danger, it's likely to be inside, and they're best off scouting out the kind of entrance they can slip into undetected. He signals Bo off to the south, and starts finding his way around the north side of the building. It's not really dark yet, just dusk. It's plenty easy to see that the weatherworn boards in front of him are solid and present no gaps through which they might slip. But he hasn't even reached his first corner yet when he sees the old trap door down into the cellar. No way to know whether there might be a direct route out of that cellar and into the warehouse, or, even better, whether the two of them can get down in there and just listen for any signs of life above. It's not the kind of place he wants to check out alone, though. A man could disappear into there without leaving his cousin with half a clue about where he's gone to.

He wonders whether Bo will remember to respond to his whippoorwill call, wonders if he still knows how to make it. He's just curling his tongue to whistle when he hears something, a crack like a breaking branch. Echoes around a bit, and he reckons Bo had better be more careful about where he steps. All the same, before letting out what could be an incriminating whistle to anyone who knows that whippoorwills have never much been found here in the lowlands of Hazzard, he reckons he'd better step up to the corner ahead of him, and give a real close listen. One step, two, and then there's no point in taking another. Moving into sight from where they've obviously been waiting for Luke approach at the north corner of the building, are two men with guns. Pistols, really, but Luke's not going to quibble over details, what with how they're pointed at him.

Hands up, Luke does his best at forcing his face into a look of pure innocence. "Can't we talk about this?" he asks in response to the way a gun barrel points him back. He's at a disadvantage, can't see their faces for the shadows. But the guns don't look real friendly. In fact, one of the barrels is waggling at him, suggesting that he needs to keep stepping back. Somewhere behind him is that trap door, which he's not sure is going to turn out to be a good thing or a bad one. Never gets to worrying about it, when what he does back into is a body. Warm, tall, giving, familiar. He takes a chance, glancing over his shoulder.

Bo. Who never has been any good at following directions.


	11. Try Another Finger

_**Author's note: **Sorry for the delay in getting this last chapter out. It really wasn't planned that way (or planned at all, perhaps this is where the flaw-in-the-slaw lies?) but just sort of happened. Anyway, there are reasons that I pick and stick to a schedule, and one of them is that I don't want there to be so long of a gap between chapters that you have to go back and read the whole thing again to remember what the story is about. Hopefully I have gotten this chapter out before anyone had to do that._

_Also, you'll note, I decided to go with putting this whole, long chapter out at once. It's the way it was originally written, and fits with the structure of the rest of the story. But it might not make for tidy, lunch break reading. Unless you get a long lunch._

_As always, don't own, ain't earning, never meaning no harm._

_Thanks for hanging in through another one. I won't say that thing about retiring (because it never quite seems to be true) but I will say that I'm not sure when I'll be posting again -- this time I've got nothing in my back pocket. (Or my front pocket either, but that's a different story.)_

_Enough with the blah, blah, blah. I leave you to Bo and Luke. (Do me proud, boys; make them stop being mad at you.)_

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Chapter 11 – Try Another Finger

His hand's on Luke's shoulder, not his fault that his cousin backed into it that way. Besides, Luke doesn't seem to be making any kind of moves to shake him off, not now. Funny how a pair of guns make his naturally surly cousin turn on the charm.

"There ain't no need for them things," is Luke's current bluff. "We was just out here hunting for squirrels, right Bo?"

More like skunks, and it seems like they've found them easily enough. Not much more than shapes, but Bo recognizes the one. Can still see the fist coming at him, low and mean, while another man held him. Feels that fading bruise on his ribs pull at the memory; seems like those guys from that Boar's Nest brawl were a little more than the drifters that Bo had them pegged for that night.

It's a good thing, he decides, that he listened to that little tickle deep inside his ear, the one that suggested splitting up wasn't the best idea Luke ever had. Reminded him that they'd just been talking about how rusty his cousin had gotten at this kind of plot, and made him picture Luke walking face first into trouble with Bo on the other side of the warehouse and no way to know. His cousin could disappear in any direction before Bo made his way all the way around to where he'd last been seen. So he made the choice to turn around, to catch up with Luke and stick together no matter what his brilliant cousin thought of the notion. Excellent choice on his part, has him facing down the barrels of a couple of guns now.

"Just hunting," Bo agrees, moving slightly right so he's closer to Luke's side than hiding behind him. Gives their new friends two targets to try to hit, makes it possible for both of them to fight.

"Move," the talkative one says. The other just stands there trying to look tough while he's got a gun pointed at Luke's chest. That, Bo reckons, is probably the coward that held him back while his buddy did the beating.

"Where?" Luke asks, and to anyone else it would sound like fear and worry, but there's a tip to his head as he says it, a raised eyebrow, asking if Bo's ready. Bo closes his eyes in one firm blink, a nearly motionless nod.

"Back," Chatty starts, but Bo is already kicking the gun out of his hand. There's movement to his left; he knows Luke's caught in his own struggle. Can't watch it, he's too busy trying to keep his man from getting back to that gun. He takes a hit, and that's all right with him, because the momentum of it pulls them both away from the weapon. Lands the other man on top of him in the dirt, and maybe he's not so much chatty as chunky. Not fat by any means, but deceptively heavy. Takes some extra strength and the leverage of his right leg to roll them over, get Bo on top. He's about to deliver what ought to be a blindingly painful blow to the stranger underneath him, when that calm voice, the one that marks Luke as placating, calls out his name.

"Bo," and in that single syllable is quiet frustration, annoyance, defeat. He looks up to see that Luke's back at the weasely one's gunpoint.

So he lets Chatty-Chunky up, stands, brushes himself off. Watches his opponent do the same, then go to stand on the safe side of the gun. "You was supposed to take care of him, Luke," he starts.

Gets him growled at. "Would've been just fine if you'd done a thorough job of getting rid of _your_ guy's gun," is the immediate answer. Ah, so that's why there's only one gun on them now. Luke managed to lose one of the weapons, but not both. Bo wonders how far away the other one is, and decides it's just best to hope no one else knows, either. Hands up, no threat to anyone, Bo walks up to Luke's left shoulder.

"You try taking care of a gun with the big guy over there in your face," he counters. Luke got the easier man to fight, after all. Skinny dude. "You think you can do so much better?"

"Gun first, Bo. Fight second," is the terse, annoyed reminder.

"All right," Bo answers, kicking the gun out of the weasely one's hand, and everything's in motion again. Damn if that little fighting-amongst-themselves trick doesn't work almost every time he and Luke use it.

This time, Bo bends for the gun, even if it does mean the skinny dude knees him in the shoulder. Dirty little fighter that guy is, Bo ought to have remembered that from the Boar's Nest brawl with him. He learns it all over again as he comes up and throws the gun as far is his arm will allow, off into the shadows. Where it might land is anyone's guess. He's got more important considerations, what with the enraged way the weasel comes after him. Seems he took the man's toy away.

And all that fury is just fine, it's useful, actually. Gives Bo an excuse to let his own anger flow freely. Embraces it like an old friend, one he's had to keep in check during all those months of silent struggle against Diane. Lets it guide his movement, backing out of the way of that vicious swing there, turning it into a graze rather than the solid hit it wants to be. Uses his own right fist in an uppercut to knock the guy back into his own territory, and just hopes the impact rattled the man's teeth as seriously as it stung on Bo's knuckle. Not that it really matters, what's important is that the weasel's taken a couple of stumbling steps backward, giving Bo room to bring out the heavy guns.

First he steals a look at Luke; this is only going to work out if his cousin's got control of his own situation, but it seems he does, and Chunky looks a little fatigued from whatever paces Luke's putting him through. Bo pays for that stolen glance with a cuff to his ear from Weasely. He'd like to blame the guy for it, but really, it's not the weasel's fault he's too short to get a good, solid hit to Bo's eye, which is likely what he was going for. Brings them annoyingly close together again, so Bo shoves him off, not a graceful move at all. Practical enough, though, it puts the space between them that Bo needs in order to link his hands together and turn sideways for one of his patented (though Luke taught it to him, he's since perfected it) elbows-to-the-breadbasket. The weasel's nothing more than a lump lying on the ground. Not out cold, exactly, but he won't be breathing deeply enough to get up for awhile now.

Turns to see his cousin delivering a knockout blow to Chunky's chin. He may never understand why Luke pulls punches instead of just taking guys down when he could, but after he's toyed with him enough, Luke can put a man to gentle sleep. Chunky won't be bothering them for awhile.

His cousin catches his eye, gives him a once-over glance for visible injuries. Seeing none, Luke slaps his shoulder, friendly touch, some kind of congratulations in that. Bo would like to sling an arm around his cousin, to get the kind of close they always stood before he went off with the carnival, but Luke doesn't give him time.

"Let's go see if we can find anything that links them to the bank robbery," he says, practical as always. A fight isn't enough to make Luke happy; he needs to be cleared of trumped up charges as well. There's no pleasing some cousins.

"Hey, Luke," he says as the man leads them around the corner of the building, towards where Chunky and Weasel came from in the first place. He reckons Luke should be indulged in his quest for the money. Giving Rosco both suspects and evidence will decrease the chances the sheriff has of arresting them for harassing tourists. "Wasn't there…"

Three of them. That night at the Boar's Nest, there were enough to go around amongst him, Luke and Cooter. And right there, on the far side of the corner his cousin has just led them around, standing guard on an old, dark blue sedan, is number three. Just as armed as his friends used to be.

"Hold it right there," is a shocked scream. Seems like this one didn't expect to have to fight. Even now, he's backing toward the car, nervous gun moving from Bo's chest to Luke's and back. Probably has plans to abandon his friends right here to whatever their fate might be, while he makes a wild run for it.

And that right there is just the kind of thing that enrages Bo. A man turning on his partners, leaving them in the lurch, well that's just cowardly. Not that he's lost any love on Weasely and Chunky, but it seems that loyalty ought to mean something, even to the kind of idiots that would let Boss goad them into robbing his bank.

"Hold it!" the sacred one screams, as Bo takes a step in his direction.

Luke's hollering a frustrated, "Bo!"

But none of it matters, not when it gets drowned out by the thunder of a gunshot, not when there's more pain than Bo has ever felt, not when he hears his own echoing scream and the ground rushes up to meet his knees, his hip, his shoulder.

* * *

Blood.

It's the first thing he sees, followed by movement. That nervous gun is still pointing itself at Bo, at least half the time. The rest of the time it's wavering around somewhere between the ground and Luke.

_Hospital_ is a nagging thought in his mind. _Fast_. And to accomplish that, the gun's got to go. He could negotiate for it, might even succeed. Tell the guy it'll go easier on him if he hands that weapon over right now rather than taking another shot at either or them, and as nervous as he is, the man might even do it. But it'll take too long, so Luke just charges him.

Thinking stops right there, everything becomes sound and feel. The hard arms of the man in front of him, as he struggles with Luke for control of the gun. The sound of grunting in his ear, the resistance as Luke forces the weapon to point at the sky, over all of their heads where if a bullet gets fired off, it stands a chance of hurting no one. The sound of Bo hollering in pain behind him – his mind grabs onto that, focuses on the deeper meaning of that particular sound – his cousin's conscious. It can't be that bad.

The struggle over the weapon gets brutal when the other man knees at Luke. Misses his target, but it's clear he's got no intentions of surrender. "Let go," Luke growls at him, and it's just frustration. He can't take his opponent down for fear of a bullet getting discharged, and he can't step back for leverage to hit the man, not without giving him half a chance to level his weapon at Bo again. Nothing to do but push at what he's already got: four hands in the air, topped by a gun, and a solid body in front of him, rigid resistance. Luke's the stronger man, or maybe the more desperate. Whichever it is, he's able to force the body in front of him to stumble back a couple of steps, until his backside hits the car. It's like cornering a wild animal, makes the desperation come to the surface and bubble over.

"No!" gets screamed in Luke's ear as he keeps pushing against those raised arms. Sets a rhythm, one-two-three, odd limp to the waltz with only one willing participant. Takes more tries than he wants it to before the gun finally slips loose from those fingertips, clattering onto the roof of the car.

Now that he doesn't have to worry about Bo getting any more holes blown into him, Luke's free to do the necessary. Knee to into thigh muscle, not so much brutal as painful, and the man in front of him tries to double over. No room, Luke's right there shoving at his shoulders. Cocks a fist and punches the stranger's cheek. No real leverage to do any more than make it hurt, but that's enough. Gives him the time he needs to step back and give himself room to finish this thing off. Ignores the way the man's hands come up in some attempt at surrender; he can't be trusted to stay passive, and the gun's still within arm's reach.

Luke's first hit is to the gut, and he lets his opponent double over this time, but it's not enough. It's going to take time and space to take care of Bo, and the only way to get it is to be sure this here bank robber is out cold. The minute the man falls to his knees, Luke grabs him under the arm and hauls him right back up. Leaves him with just his left fist to swing, but that's all right. His next hit connects with jaw, and his opponent slams into the car behind him. Keeps him on his feet so Luke can get a right handed jab right at his nose, then a left to the temple. His right arm's back with intentions of hitting somewhere around the man's cheek, but it gets hung up on something, gets held back, and that's a hand on his bicep. Doesn't fully stop, him, just slows him down so that the hit only grazes cheekbone.

He wheels around to take on whoever this new combatant is, but it's only Bo.

"Luke!" he hollers, and it sounds frustrated, sounds like it's not the first time his cousin's shouted it.

His eyes wildly scan Bo's body; his cousin shouldn't be upright. And now that he's no longer using his right arm to hold Luke back, he's reached it across his body to hold and protect the left.

Blood.

"Bo," he says, stripping his shirt off. "Lay down. And get your arm up. Above your heart." Not that he gives his cousin a chance to follow his instructions, not with how he's grabbing onto that left arm, trying to see clearly enough in the dim light to figure out where the tourniquet needs to go.

"I'm okay," Bo insists, but he's not. He's anything but steady under the grip Luke's got on his wrist, trying to keep that arm still. "Ow!" is the complaint after Luke lets him go long enough to use both hands to tie his shirt onto his cousin's upper arm, above where the blood stain is heaviest. "Luke! I'll be okay if you stop—"

"Lay down," he instructs again. "At least sit," is the compromise his offers when Bo doesn't respond. Thinks twice. "Never mind. Put your other arm around my shoulders, Bo."

"Wait," confusion in his cousin's voice, on what Luke can see of his pale face. "What? Slow down, Luke." Strange suggestion, they're not moving anywhere, not until Bo gets around to putting an arm around him. "We got to get Rosco here."

"We got to get to Tri-County," Luke corrects his clearly delusional cousin. Doesn't look like he's lost enough blood to cloud his mind, but then again, Bo's never exactly been clear-thinking to begin with. "Get your good arm around me so's I can get you back to the car." That old Swinger isn't exactly the General, but with Luke behind the wheel it'll still get them to the hospital plenty fast.

"We can't, we got to get Rosco here." Bo's getting downright repetitive, not to mention stubborn. "Luke, if he don't get here and arrest these guys with the evidence," which they haven't found, but Bo's been shot, he can't be held accountable for remembering such things. "You and me are still gonna take the fall for it. We'll go to prison."

Prison means nothing. Ten years or life, it doesn't matter, not now. Someday he might get around to caring about doing serious time, but it's not going to be on any day when Bo's been shot. (And where's the bullet? Is it in Bo's arm or on the ground, and why is he still standing here thinking about this?).

"I'll call Rosco on the way to the hospital, all right?" is his attempt at a compromise. Funny how he's not so thrilled Bo's conscious anymore. It would have been quicker to drag a limp body all the way back to the car than it has been to have this stupid discussion.

Bo shakes his head. "I ain't hurt that bad, Luke. I can wait for Rosco to get here. Call him now, get him to send an ambulance, too."

He snags an arm around Bo's waist, gets pushed back. Not hard, his cousin's not in any real condition to fight him.

"All right," he says. They need to get moving before these guys wake up and start searching for the pistols that are scattered around what was once the lawn that surrounded the warehouse. "I'll call Rosco now. He can be on his way out here while we're on our way to the hospital, okay?"

Bo would like to disagree with him, but doesn't get a chance. Luke steps away from his cousin, around the man that's out cold at his feet. (Could be he hit him a few more times that was strictly necessary.) Over to the blue car and opens the driver's door. Sits in the seat and looks to his right – perfect, a CB. He tunes it to the police channel.

"This here's Luke Duke, calling the Hazzard County Sheriff's Department. Luke Duke calling Sheriff Rosco Coltrane." Listens to static for a second or two, and he's about to tell Bo they're leaving anyway, when he gets his answer.

"This here's Enos, Luke. I'm sorry the sheriff's not here right now. He's gone off duty for dinner and won't be back until the morning. He's madder than a wet hen at you, though." CB radios really need an interrupt option, but there's nothing Luke can do other than wait for a break in the deputy's happy chatter. "You really ought to turn yourselves in. It ain't proper to go busting out of jail like you done."

"Enos," Luke growls in frustration. "Bo's been shot." Now that right there was a mistake. Enos is back on his end of the radio all but squealing with worry. Luke waits for another break. "He's gonna be fine, Enos. But we's up here at the old Cirulli Warehouse with the men that did the shooting. We think they're the ones who robbed the bank."

"We know they're the ones that robbed the bank," Bo tells him. Uses his good arm to point to the back seat of the car. Seems like the dome light must have revealed the evidence back there.

"They're the ones that robbed the bank," Luke corrects himself. "We're headed to the hospital, but you need to come up here and arrest these guys."

He doesn't wait for an answer, and the noise that comes over the radio isn't exactly clear anyway. High pitched, excited, the tone indicates that the deputy will be out here in minutes, assuming he doesn't wrap himself around a tree or two on the way. Luke grabs the keys out of the ignition on his way out of the car.

"All right?" he asks Bo, standing up and showing him how he's taking the bad guys' mode of transportation away from them by pocketing the keys. He figures, if Boss hired them, they're likely too dumb to hotwire the car anyway. "Can we go now?"

His cousin slings his good arm around Luke's shoulders, leans tiredly against him. It's about time.

* * *

"I can so," he has to insist, because holding a nut still with a crescent wrench is a one-handed job. Luke would just about have him in bed all day if he didn't fight to be on his feet. Doing chores is still against Luke's rules, and technically, so is helping Cooter with the General. Mostly, if he's going to insist on accompanying Luke out of their bedroom, he's supposed to sit passively and watch everyone else work. Seems like something his childhood self always wanted; now he knows better. It's boring.

What's on his left arm barely amounts to more than a scratch. A little deeper, ripped through some muscle, and that's going to take time to heal. But it's nothing even close to life threatening, and it probably won't even keep him laid up for planting season. Assuming he lets it rest now.

And he is, he's not using his left arm for anything. Couldn't if he wanted to, the way Luke makes sure that the sling he was given three nights ago at the hospital is firmly affixed each morning, and doesn't come off until bedtime. If it means Luke has to lend a spare hand to making sure that all the peas on Bo's plate wind up on his fork one way or another, he mostly does it without complaining. Oh, he points out how Bo ought to be more coordinated, but technically, that's closer to an insult than a complaint.

"See?" he points out as he deftly hooks the crescent wrench around the nut in question without ever threatening to move his left arm.

"Fine," Luke says, throwing up his hands. Makes a show of heading back to the General's rear end, where he's been trying to make the bumper hang as solidly as it did before the car's frame got rattled in the rollover. Leaves Bo and Cooter to finish up under the hood. Honestly, there's not more than maybe two days' work left in front of them before the General will be back on all fours again.

And the boys will be free to roam the dirt roads of Hazzard, much to the annoyance of one J.D. Hogg. All the details of the bank robbery never came out into the public, and Bo reckons that like any number of other Boss Hogg schemes, him and Luke will never really know all of what happened. By fortunate circumstance, it was Enos that answered Luke's CB call that night, and though he brought Rosco with him for backup, Enos responded to the scene. What with Hazzard's honest deputy finding three men in close proximity to a blue sedan with clearly marked money bags in the back seat, it seemed there was an open and shut case. One that cleared the Duke boys, and sent Boss off into a fit of fury. Finally, Bo knew he was really home.

"Huh, well will you look at that?" Cooter dares to comment, now that Luke's otherwise occupied.

"What?" he asks. All he can tell is that despite the leverage his crescent wrench is giving the nut, the bolt's still not properly threading through it.

"I don't quite believe it," is about all the answer he gets.

"What?" If it comes out sounding cranky, well, that's not exactly Bo's fault.

Meanwhile, their grease-covered friend is getting down on his hands and knees to look at the car's undercarriage. Funny how all three of them have spent the day working on this same car, and Cooter's the only one that's gotten filthy.

"Dang it, Cooter, would you tell me what?"

The man's on his back, sliding underneath the car. There are mumbled words, or maybe they're just noises, from where he's poking around. For a moment Bo catches a glimpse of the screwdriver Cooter's jabbing up from underneath, but the sight doesn't last long. More mumblings and Bo's getting to be about ready to join Luke in sulking at the back end of the car.

"Well looky there," are the first clear words in a while, as the mechanic slides back out from his little cocoon down below. By now even Luke's done pretending to be aloof back there, and cranes his neck around to see what Cooter's holding up. Doesn't look like much of anything to Bo. Must not mean a lot to Luke, either; he shrugs and goes back to fine tuning that bumper.

"What is it?" Bo reckons he's owed an answer after having asked more times than he can remember.

"Well," Cooter says as he tugs himself to standing, milking his moment for everything it's worth, and placing the small bit of silver into Bo's hand. "I figured that there got lost in the tumble, but it didn't." Whistles like that's all he plans to say, then goes back to studying the engine.

"Dang it!" If Uncle Jesse was here, he'd be getting lectured for raising his voice so much, and saying _dang_ twice in as many minutes.

"That there is all that's left of the castellated nut that used to be at the far end of this here bolt we're replacing." Which just happens to be one of the weight-bearing bolts that holds the General's powerful engine in place. "I figured it was as gone as the rest of the hardware, but it weren't. It was jammed up in there, right by the nut you was trying to hold still. Engine must've slammed around pretty good when you rolled, to make such a mess of that thing."

Mess is right. What he's got here isn't much more than a twisted hunk of metal. He sticks it into his pocket, then gets back into position to help Cooter.

"Whatcha do that for? We can throw it into the junk pile," Cooter offers, sticking his hand back out for the prize Bo's just claimed.

"Nah," he says. "Souvenir."

* * *

"I can so," Bo insists, sounding every bit of the five-year-old, snotty-nosed, filthy-faced kid he used to be. He displays for Luke the full mobility of his arm, just like he did for Doc Petticord this morning. A little slow and ginger yet when it comes to lifting it over his head, but he can do it. The stitches just came out this morning, too, and Luke's had enough of those things to know that the day they come out feels like that last day of school, finally free. "Come on," he says. "My left arm don't do much more than hold the wheel steady anyways."

"I think he's fine," is Cooter's input and whether he's talking about the car or Bo, it doesn't matter. His opinion wasn't asked. Luke turns to give the mechanic a dirty look that reminds him to stay out of family business, but of course their friend doesn't cower away. He reckons he's really one of Uncle Jesse's brood, figures he has a right to comment on such situations. Luke shakes his head at the man, at Bo, at the General whose gleaming orange coat is tempting him to give in to the pressure.

"Come on," Bo says, lifting his right leg onto the window frame. "If you don't come with me, I'm going anyways."

And that, right there, is the bone of contention between them. Bo will always do exactly what he wants to, regardless of what's best for him. His cousin is exactly the same brat he's always been, and not. Because now he's too old for Luke to keep in line, too sure of himself to listen when he should, and at this moment, too cheerful for Luke to resist.

So he unfolds his arms from where they've been wrapped across his chest, walks across the concrete floor of the town's garage, and grabs the General's roof with his left hand. Looks at Cooter and warns, "This thing had better be in condition to take a beating." Because the energy that Bo is spending getting into the car is only the beginning. Soon he'll be directing all that force into finding every dip and bump on every back road of the county.

The mechanic shrugs. "You put him back together yourself, buddy-roe." Well, yes and no. He didn't look over Cooter's shoulder the whole time, he doesn't know that every weld is solid and every bolt is tightened. But he's about to find out.

The car roars to life as he slides down into his seat. Violent sort of surge to the engine, a feeling Luke hasn't known for a year and a half. The General's resentment at being sidelined is there right under the seat of Luke's pants. He pats the vinyl there – _I know, Buddy_. Not sure whether its an apology for locking the car up during that time, or commiseration on the nature of little blonde boys that go chasing after little blonde girls, leaving the ones that love them behind.

The remnants of Cooter's holler, "Have fun," come drifting through Luke's window, nearly drowned out by the General's squealing tires as Bo skates him out of the garage and onto the street. Hard left turn and they're gone.

Dirt roads rumbling underneath him at speeds he's no longer used to. His mouth remembers what his stomach has forgotten. He's laughing, uncontrolled, wild. There's every chance he'll be sick, if the laughter ever stops.

"Yee-haw," Bo announces, annoying, eardrum-shattering noise. It's enough to bring Luke back to himself.

"Watch the ditch, Bo," he warns. "It got a little wider after last fall's rains." Deeper, too, broke Daisy's friend Sally-Jo's axle a couple of months back, and Luke had to come out and rescue her or face the wrath of one female cousin on the warpath. "Don't you go getting either one of us hurt, not when we've already put off planting for a week." No two ways about it, they have got to start tomorrow morning, first thing. Even if he's got no intentions of letting Bo put his full strength into the project, not yet.

Bo giggles at the notion of worrying about a little hole in the ground, and only his cousin would be such a blamed fool barely ten days after an ugly rollover. "Say Luke," he says, like they're sitting by a lake under the blue sky with nothing more pressing to do than listen to birdsong. "There still that lip over there on the bank of the Styx River?"

Oh, no. They are not pulling that fool stunt again, jumping off a cliff's edge to land on the far side of the river below. They've done it twice before, but both times it was to escape the likes of pursuing law enforcement. There's no good reason to be doing it now.

"I ain't been out there," Luke admits. "And we ain't got no reason to go out that way now." He might as well be talking to the wind. "Bo!" he shouts. Gets thoroughly ignored.

At least, he figures, they'll have to pull off the road first, check out the solidity of what once served as a ramp there. Once they're out of the car, he'll talk some sense into Bo, and if that doesn't work, he'll—

Not get a chance to do anything, his cousin doesn't even slow down.

"Bo!"

"Yee-haw!"

His stomach's still back there on the bluff, and the rest of his body's got that detached, floating feeling. He's always hated this part, even when it's been him in the pilot's seat. The top of the arc, before gravity claims them, and he knows they are about to die. Sees death reaching up to grab them as he watches that red clay loom in the windshield, feels the car's nose just begging to plow into stone and send them rolling end over end. There's the crunch and he waits for the pain, every nerve in his body at the ready—

Gets another "Yee-haw" screamed into his ear, and while it might not be the pain he's been waiting for so hard that his shoulder muscles are stiff from how they're tensed, it hurts in its own way. Bo skids the car to a stop in the dust, then turns to him with that little-boy grin. "Come on, Luke!" he hollers. "Admit it. That was fun like you ain't had since I left." Then there are hands on him, pulling at him, forcing him into a hug.

Poor boy's ego has clearly suffered horribly over the last year and a half. Whatever happened between him and Diane (and Luke reckons he'd better get around to asking about that pretty soon), whatever she did to make him leave her, whatever pride he had to swallow in coming home, there's no sign of any permanent damage to the man.

"Come on, Luke," Bo says more quietly now, rubbing at his back, his shoulders, trying to find some give or softness there. And he reckons it wouldn't kill him to sling his right arm around Bo, to hold onto the cousin he almost lost more times than he can count, ever since that day when the carnival rolled into Hazzard County. Might not hurt to let Bo know that he's wanted, right here next to Luke. Lets himself relax, lets Bo hold on until he's ready to let go.

"Drive," Luke commands when he's freed from the sweaty prison of Bo's arms.

But his cousin shakes his head. "Not yet," he responds, trying to cram his right hand into his pocket. Jeans are too tight for that, Bo has to twist his body and arch his back, jam his fingers down into denim, then just about lose them there. Luke pulls up on the parking brake; seems like they might be here awhile.

"Watch your—" But he's too late, Bo's already bumped his left arm against the doorframe in his struggle to beat his own pants into submission. Wince for that, and Luke grabs his good arm to right him. "Get out first," he suggests. "Before you go digging into your pocket." But it's too late, Bo's fingers are already down there, now just wiggling their way out. Whatever he's been fishing for nearly drops from his fingertips, and he catches it with his left hand, another wince for having moved too quickly.

Luke's hands are under his then; whatever it is, Bo doesn't need to hurt himself grabbing for it if he loses his grip again. Gets surprised when Bo intentionally opens his hands to drop the object into Luke's.

Silver thing. Luke brings it closer – a ring. "What is it?" his mouth says anyway, even if his eyes can see perfectly well what it's shaped like. Mostly he wants clarification about whether it's something Diane gave his cousin, something he's going to want to throw into the fastest moving current of the river behind them.

"A ring," Bo enlightens him. The Duke cousins seem to be equally brilliant this afternoon. "From that castellated nut Cooter pulled out of the General's engine. Messed up like it was he couldn't be sure, but he thought it might have been original equipment. Like from when we built the engine. I had him smith it into a ring. For you."

Now that he looks at it, Luke can see it's not exactly store quality. Shiny enough, but not real silver by any means. And a bit rough hewn at that, wider on one side than the other. "You asking for my hand in marriage?" is his smirking reply. "Because if that's the case you're gonna have to get Jesse's permission, and I think his answer'll be no." And just maybe the old man would send Bo back out after Diane, telling him he had the right idea in the first place.

Bo doesn't think he's funny. "It ain't an engagement ring," he snaps. "It's more like something to remind you of what we done together. Building the General just being one thing."

Unaccountably, Luke feels his stomach bottom out, even if the car's still now. "You leaving again?" This ring sounds something like a parting gift to him.

"No," Bo tells him. "I ain't got no plans on going nowheres." There's a huff, and then, "Why do you got to make everything so hard?" Eyebrows down, and it's not a pretty look on the boy.

Luke pushes the ring down onto his finger, doesn't make it but halfway there. "It don't fit," comes out of his mouth without him thinking, and he mentally kicks himself. Bo's already pouting over there.

But his cousin just sighs at stubborn fools. "Try another finger, Luke." There's a lesson in there somewhere, he's sure. Something about how he shouldn't give up so quickly, probably, not when it comes to family. How just because they're all grown up now doesn't mean they can't still fit closely together, so long as they work at it a little bit. And maybe, just maybe, about how it took both of them, puffed up like roosters with hot pride in their hearts and dry bitterness on their tongues, to let a girl get between them.

He takes it off his ring finger, slides it onto his pinky. Makes it past both knuckles and settles there at the base of his finger. "All right?" he asks.

Bo nods, a quiet, serious movement, one that's nothing like the wild boy who jumped the car onto these flats a few minutes ago.

"Thanks," Luke says. Maybe he's supposed to make a speech; he can't be sure. But, "a lot," is the only way he can think to finish that sentence.

Doesn't matter, Bo's smile lights up the car, the sand, and the river beyond. Its glow might reach all the way across the county, for all Luke knows. They've got a lot of arguments between them to come, he reckons, when they get to talking about that year and a half Bo was gone. But right now the sun is shining in Bo's smile, and it's a perfect day.

Luke's right hand closes; he can feel the weight of the ring on his pinky there. He points his index finger out the windshield and orders, "Go!"

Bo lowers the handbrake and obeys, sending the General charging with dirt-kicking flare. They leave two divots in the sand behind them: a neon sign announcing _the Duke boys were here_.


End file.
